Divendres passat es va publicar el primer informe del Supervisor General del programa TARP, "Troubled Assets Relief Program", més conegut com a "Pla Paulson". Un pla que, com recordareu, destinava 787.000 milions de dòlars a impedir la fallida dels grans bancs i també de la General Motors i Chrysler.
Si bé l'informe constata que el TARP ha impedit que algunes de les grans institucions bancàreis nord-americanes s'estalviéssin la fallida, el to de la resta de l'informe suggereix que els autors no estan segurs de que això hagi sigut una bona cosa.
Many of TARP’s stated goals, however, have simply not been met. Despite the fact that the explicit goal of the Capital Purchase Program (“CPP”) was to increase financing to U.S. businesses and consumers, lending continues to decrease, month after month, and the TARP program designed specifically to address small-business lending — announced in March 2009 — has still not been implemented by Treasury.
Notwithstanding the fact that preserving homeownership and promoting jobs were explicit purposes of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (“EESA”), the statute that created TARP, nearly 16 months later, home foreclosures remain at record levels, the TARP foreclosure prevention program has only permanently modified a small fraction of eligible mortgages, and unemployment is the highest it has been in a generation. Whether these goals can effectively be met through existing TARP programs is very much an open question at this time.
És a dir, que no ha servit de res ajudar la banca perquè continuen sense estar en condicions de donar crèdits a les petites i mitjanes empreses. Les ajudes a les famílies hipotacades no han servit per evitar els deshaucis i l’atur s’ha disparat.
It is hard to see how any of the fundamental problems in the system have been addressed to date, to the extent that huge, interconnected, “too big to fail” institutions contributed to the crisis, those institutions are now even larger, in part because of the substantial subsidies provided by TARP and other bailout programs.
Els bancs cosiderats “massa grans per permetre que facin fallida” son ara més grans encara, gràcies a les ajudes públiques i perquè els concurrents més petits, que no en tenien, han fet fallida. Això ha creat el sentiment que, facin el que facin, la seva dimensió els garanteix que l’Estat correrà a pagar les seves factures.
(...) Institutions were previously incentivized to take reckless risks through a “heads, I win; tails, the Government will bail me out” mentality, the market is more convinced than ever that the Government will step in as necessary to save systemically significant institutions. This perception was reinforced when TARP was extended until October 3, 2010.Per si tot això no fos poc, l’informe constata que el TARP ha propiciat l’aparició de desenes de casos de frau i corrupció. A l’informe del supervisor es diu que s’han obert prop de 90 investigacions.
SIGTARP’s Investigations Division has continued to develop into a sophisticated white-collar investigative agency.
Through December 31, 2009, SIGTARP has opened 86 and has 77 ongoing criminal and civil investigations. These investigations include complex issues concerning suspected TARP fraud, accounting fraud, securities fraud, insider trading, bank fraud, mortgage fraud, mortgage servicer misconduct, fraudulent advance-fee schemes, public corruption, false statements, obstruction of justice, money laundering, and tax-related investigations.
I això no és tot, seguiu llegint...
(Extractes de Vincent Bénard)