May 6, 2009

The Bailout Makes A Profit*

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There’s good news and bad news. The good news is that the $700 billion bank bailout has finally made a profit. The bad news is that it’s for this week.

Paul Keil at ProPublica reports that $125.2 million came in and only $45.5 million went out through the bailout program over the last week, for a “profit” of $79.7 million. More from Keil:

As always, it’s time for your weekly update on the bank bailouts.There were seven more TARP takers this week, totaling $45.5 million:

These investments are through the Treasury’s program for “healthy banks,” the Capital Purchase Program. The Treasury currently has $197.9 billion invested in more than 550 banks all over the country. You can see the entire list of bailout recipients here.

Of course, bit by bit, banks have been returning bailout funds because of the bailout’s taint and restrictions on executive compensation. Yesterday, the 12th bank returned the money: Sterling Bancshares of Houston, Texas, returned $125.2 million. As you can see from our list of banks that have refunded their bailout money, the 12 have returned $1.16 billion so far. Lately, Capital Purchase Program investments have slowed down considerably, and more bailout money has been coming back to Treasury than has been going out.

This story first appeared on ProPublica.

It is the latest from ProPublica’s new bailout blog. Check out the all-seeing database of the bailout billions. 

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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