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28 Nov 2011 11:28

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Biz: Bloomberg: Banks scored sneaky profits on emergency loans

  • $13 billion earned by banks via roundabout loans source
  • » How they worked: These banks took advantage of a set of emergency loans from the Federal Reserve distributed between August 2007 and April 2010. Bloomberg Markets magazine did the math on the numbers and figured out that, by looking at the companies’ net interest margin, you could see how the companies took advantage of the below-market rates they got on the loans to earn a profit. The companies that scored the biggest paydays? Citigroup, which earned $1.8 billion, and Bank of America, which earned $1.5 billion.

08 Aug 2011 11:10

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Biz: AIG sues Bank of America claiming they got massively defrauded

  • Defendants were engaged in a massive scheme to manipulate and deceive investors, like AIG, who had no alternative but to rely on the lies and omissions made.
  • A legal complaint filed by AIG • Revealing that the company, which still has a freaking massive taxpayer bill to pay off, plans to sue Bank of America for $10 billion dollars, claiming “massive fraud” on the mortgage debt AIG insured while the companies Countrywide and Merrill Lynch were still independent. (To put it simply, AIG feels that the companies lied about the quality of the debt, making them sound better than it was.) AIG is still working on paying back roughly $182.3 billion in bailouts, so the $10 billion would help. source

07 Apr 2011 10:22

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World: Anyone want to spot Portugal some money? They kinda need it

  • 70 billion (or more) needed to help bail out Portugal source
  • » Coming today — the request: Portugal’s current caretaker government plans to solicit the European Union for bailout money today. However, the fact that it is a caretaker government complicates things, because some argue that they may not have the proper authority to take on such a task. To put this in perspective, Ireland’s outgoing government made a similar bailout request, only to have to the new government ask for changes after they got into office — something that the people handing out the money didn’t like. Gift horse, mouth, all that stuff.

11 Feb 2011 10:57

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Biz: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac getting kicked onto the curb?

  • This is a plan for fundamental reform — to wind down the GSEs, strengthen consumer protection and preserve access to affordable housing for people who need it.
  • Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner • Explaining how he wants to wind down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two government-owned mortgage-securities organizations which helped fuel the housing bubble and were ultimately felled by the subprime mortgage crisis. Geithner laid out three different ways to solve the Fannie and Freddie problem, all of which involve getting them off the taxpayer’s dime. The solutions rank in varying degrees – one is completely privatized with government guidance, one plays middle ground, and the third is a more-regulated version of Fannie and Freddie. The current organizations would pay off their massive debts, though. source

11 Feb 2011 10:37

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Biz: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac: When does “bailout” become “sinkhole”?

  • $153
    billion
    the amount that taxpayers have lost already on bailing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
  • $68
    billion
    the amount expected to fall into that money pit by 2013 – a $211 billion grand total source

07 Dec 2010 23:14

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Biz: Did we really profit off Citi, or are we still in the danger zone?

  • So assuming that the banking sector doesn’t suffer another crisis in the next two years, taxpayers might be okay after all. Indeed, even if there is some loss on these guarantees, the assets would have to be pretty rotten to eat up the government’s entire $12 billion profit on the equity sale.
  • The Atlantic associate editor Daniel Indiviglio • Offering some more context on the Citi bailout numbers. While the U.S. no longer owns any shares in Citi, we do have other stakes in the company – most notably, we’re still backing a lot of their debt right now due to a program called the “Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program,” which isn’t as easy to acronym as TARP. But by the end of 2012 at the latest, we’ll be off the hook for that. Still, though, the fact that we might make any money off of TARP is impressive. “Citi was viewed by many as the big bank with the most serious problems,” Indiviglio notes, suggesting that the profit would prove that their bailout in 2008 was warranted by panic and general FUD, not “too big to fail”-type concerns.  source

07 Dec 2010 22:54

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Biz: The U.S. sold off its last Citi shares; how’d we do on that bailout?

  • 0 the number of Citi shares the U.S. owns as of today; good riddance
  • $45B the amount of money the U.S. infused in Citi during the great bailout crisis of 2008
  • $57B the proceeds the U.S. made on the bailout investment (golf clap; good show, chaps)
  • $12B the amount the U.S. has profited from Citi – wait, we made money on a bailout? source
 

27 Nov 2010 11:43

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Biz: General Motors officially crosses the “biggest IPO ever” mark

  • $23.1
    billion
    the size of GM’s IPO, officially the biggest global IPO on record
  • $49.5
    billion
    the amount they owe the government for their bailout source
  • » What’s needed next? If the government hopes to break even on its huge investment in GM, the stock needs to hit around $50 a share. It’s currently at $33.80, but if, say, the Chevy Volt is a huge success on the market, it could definitely hit that mark.

16 Nov 2010 20:06

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Biz: Bailout blossoming: GM’s pending IPO quickly growing ever-larger

  • 30% the increase in the total size of GM’s post-bailout IPO tomorrow
  • 478M number of shares to be offered to investors; more could be offered
  • $22.6B the potential size of the IPO, which would be the biggest ever source

10 Nov 2010 09:48

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Biz: Bailed-out (and profitable!) General Motors kicking butt these days

  • $2 billion in profits for GM in the third quarter alone (*golf clap*)

Three reasons why this is good news:

 

  • one It’s shaping up to be their first profitable year since 2004 – long before we heard anything about auto industry bailouts.
  • two Most of the profits came from North America, where the company has been fairly weak in recent years. (Too many SUVs.)
  • three GM has an IPO coming very soon, and a solid performance like this bodes well for their return to stocks. source