The govt. has made a nice profit from most of the TARP bank bailouts.
http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-mone...percent-profit
The biggest payback is in the works. Treasury Dept is expecting to start selling off 1.5 billions shares in Citi that it acquired in return for its $45 billion bailout of Citi.
It purchased the equity shares at $3.25/share at the time. The selling price of Citi stock (as of last week) was $4.61/share. Expect another $7+ billion profit.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...042602106.html
BUT, the GM and AIG bailouts still overshadow the entire TARP program.
Would the impact on the economy of NOT bailing out GM and AIG have been only marginal, thus not worth the attempt to save the companies in order to keep the economy from tanking? We'll never know.