This should be good news to all taxpayers. While housing giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae both rendered incapable of operating without bailout money, majors banks are now ready to start paying off the government for the aid they got due to the financial crisis.
JPMorgan Chase & Co is even expecting repayments to start in the next two weeks. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are also intent on repaying the funds they got from the Troubled Asset Relief Program or TARP. The Fed is now talking to these banks for arrangements.
“We believe we can and should be able to repay TARP,” JPMorgan CEO James Dimon told stockholders. “We believe the government will allow a few well-capitalized banks to repay TARP in the next couple of weeks.”
However, taxpayers might not like the motivations behind the repayment. Banks want independence from the government and paying off what it owes the Fed is a step towards that. A couple of perks that financially independent companies can gave would be freedom from compensation caps and hiring of foreign workers.
Source: Reuters
