New at Reason: Katherine Mangu-Ward on TARP Profits and Tall Tales

September 3, 2009

There's an old business joke that goes like this:

Q: How do you make a million dollars in the airline industry?
A: Start with a billion dollars.

Reading the coverage this week of the "profits" rolling in from last year's Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) loans, Senior Editor Katherine Mangu-Ward sees glimmers of the same joke, even less funny this time (if such a thing is possible), and told at taxpayers' expense. The TARP version of the joke goes something like this:

Q: How do you make $4 billion in the banking industry?
A: Start with $700 billion in taxpayer money.

Read all about it here.