Government Bailout

Book excerpt: The Troubled Asset Relief Program ("TARP") represents a massive and unprecedented investment of taxpayer money designed to stabilise the financial industry and promote economic recovery. The long-term success of the program is not assured. Success -- or failure -- will depend on whether the Department of the Treasury has spent, and will spend in the future, that massive investment wisely and efficiently to attain the program's goals. While it is too early to draw any conclusions on that ultimate issue, this assessment must necessarily begin with an understanding of what the Treasury has done thus far. The goal of this book is to present a ready reference on what TARP is and how it has been used, at least for the first $350 billion authorised as of January 23, 2009. This book consists of public domain documents which have been located, gathered, combined, reformatted, and enhanced with a subject index, selectively edited and bound to provide easy access.