Kucinich memo: Four largest TARP recipients spent billions on 'questionable transactions'

[deminks]

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/New_memo_details_questionable_transactions_of_0309.html

Rather than using federal bailout money to reinvigorate lending to consumers, some banks that received funds from TARP have spent it on questionable items that have done little to improve the health of the country’s financial sector but have certainly helped out foreign economies such as Dubai and China.

For instance, Citigroup Inc, which received $50 billion in Troubled Asset Relief Program funds, made an $8 billion December loan, not to an American entity, but to a Dubai public sector company, according to a newly released Monday memo by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), chairman of the House Domestic Policy Subcommittee.

The Goldman Sachs Group, which received $10 billion in TARP funds at the end of October, saw fit to spend $2 billion earlier in the year on the repurchase of company stock, which resulted in an increase in company share price.

The memo notes of that stock repurchase, “That increase would have constituted a significant benefit to top executives at Goldman Sachs, who typically own large amounts of company stock.”

(snip)

In mid- November, Bank of America spent $7 billion investing in the China Construction Bank Corporation. Bank of America received $25 billion in TARP funds.

(end snip)

Not illegal, but despicable, nonetheless.

[Democrats_win]

1. FACT: our economy would be much better had we loaned the money to the people directly.

A Nobel winning economist on Amy Goodman's Democracy Now said that the 700 billion that we gave banksters would have produced 7 trillion dollars in economic activity had we found a way to loan it to actual people and businesses. Then the bush depression would have been a mild recession.