It has been one year since Congress allotted $700 billion dollars to bailout the financial industry. With TARP's first birthday the debate on if the program has been a success or failure is heating up.

On the heels of its $8 billion capital raise last month, Morgan Stanley, perhaps stunned by how high its stock price has remained, is raising another $2.2 billion in equity. Gotta pay back that TARP so it can return to paying bonuses at the expense of shareholders.

President Barack Obama sat down with CEO’s from Bank of America, Bank of New York Mellon, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and U.S. Bancorp today to discuss the current economic crisis.

This story's running on the wires now: Geithner Delays Bank-Rescue Speech to Keep Focus on Stimulus. The fact that it's being delayed isn't exactly surprising. The T.A.R.P. II program is downright offensive to the sensibilities of sane people everywhere. The non-taxcut portions of the Stimulus bill (a/k/a the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009"), on the other hand, are brutally needed right now.

In mid-December, Bank of America struck a deal behind closed doors with top U.S. financial officials: BofA could count on all the help it needed to cover the losses at Merrill Lynch, whatever they turned out to be. The important thing was for the deal to go through.

By Paul Kiel, ProPublic
Obama's economic team finally did get a bit more specific with their plans for the second $350 billion of the TARP, and it was enough to win the day in the Senate. On a 52-42 vote [1], the Senate voted to release the money.

Fox Business Network has had enough of the Treasury ducking and dodging how TARP funds are being used that they have filed a lawsuit against the Treasury under the federal Freedom of Information Act.

The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) has surpassed the 100 bank and institution bailout point totaling $167,756,852,000 in taxpayer money under the Capital Purchase Program according to the December 16th, 2008 Transaction Report by the Treasury.

A “heightened risk that the interest of the government and taxpayers may not be adequately protected,” is what the Government Accountability Office stated about the TARP program.

Today Interim Assistant Kashkari defended the TARP program claiming that progress is being made and then proceeds to hand out an additional $1.5 billion to 15 banks.