Email from a friend:
One of our institutional equity market strategists reacted to Pres O's proposal to tax banks to recover TARP money. Everyone knows the the gov't is net ahead on its bank investments, but here are the actual returns (costs or benefits to taxpayers) as calculated by my colleague:
Bank bailouts: + 16.9 billion profit to date
AIG bailout: - $30.4 billion projected loss
Automaker bailout: - $30.5 billion projected loss
Homeowner bailouts: - $50 billion projected subsidy
Looks to me that the logic leads us to tax homeowners. Ooooooooops! I just realized that he is proposing that, too.