The U.S. Treasury Department announced Friday that the remaining shares of Ally Financial were sold for $1.3 billion, ending the massive bailouts that first began in 2008, reported ThinkProgress.
Ally Financial was the former financing subsidiary of General Motors, and its sale was the signature action in the bailout and generated $2.4 billion in profit. Altogether, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) that handled the bank and auto bailouts created $15.35 billion in profit for the government.
Over $400 billion was used to prevent the financial and automobile industries from completely tanking and “interest payments and stock sales since then have brought in $441.7 billion.” The auto industry has turned a loss for the government because General Motors paid back $10 billion less than what they were given.
According to a 2013 year-end report, the bailout, though turning a government loss, reportedly saved 2.6 million jobs in 2009 and 1.5 million the following year.
According to ThinkProgress, many “charged that the government did more to help the financial companies that brought about the crash in the first place than it did struggling homeowners caught up in the foreclosure crisis.” Which is absolutely correct.
It was the greed of the banks and Wall Street executives that prompted the 2008 financial crisis in the first place. The crash even prompted the Dodd-Frank Act because banksters had too much free rein. Sadly, bankers at the helm of the 2008 crisis never got arrested or saw a day in court.