[QUOTE=kazbates;662205]The government gave these banks billions of dollars, hoping that they would stimulate the economy by lending it out. /QUOTE]
Your certainly entitled to your own opinions, but you're not entitled to your own facts. Your statement above is simply, patently NOT TRUE. The TARP $$ given to the banks was not done to stimulate the economy; it was done to protect the entire financial system from collapsing & taking the entire global finanancial system down with it. At it's core it was intended to allow the US Treasury to buy toxic assets from the banks, thereby propping up balance sheets of financial institutions.
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