Friday, January 09, 2009

We'll have what Warren's having, thank you

Dean Starkman spots a few good bits from the Post and Bloomberg.

Upshot is: Warren Buffet invested in banks and got good terms. The TARP bailout invested in those same banks and got considerably less bang for the buck. Half? No. Try a tenth of what WB got.

Here the home run bit of data:
The government has received warrants [rights to buy shares] valued at $13.8 billion in the 25 biggest capital injections from TARP, according to Bloomberg data. Under the terms Buffett negotiated for his $5 billion stake in Goldman Sachs, the TARP certificates would have been worth $130.8 billion.

This is what happens when Congress legislates with a (perceived) gun to their heads.

Late edit: The Big Picture has Bloomberg's graphics on this. Visuals help, I think.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Actually, we get to eat the corn out of his sh..........

Sorry.

Unknown said...

That's some mighty expensive corn...

*grin*