Danny Schechter - ColdType

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AP explained. “The report said little about who is under
investigation and how the fraudulent schemes work, but investigators
are already on alert for a long list of potential scams.
Such schemes could include obtaining bailout money under
false pretenses, bilking the government with phony mortgage
modifications, and cheating on taxes with fraudulent filings.
“ ‘You don’t need an entirely corrupt institution to pull one
of these schemes off,’ ” Barofsky said. ‘You only need a few corrupt
managers whose compensation may be tied to the performance
of these assets in order to effectively pull off a collusion
or a kickback scheme.’ ”
(By July 2009, there had still been no full accounting with
the usage of the TARP monies. The Washington Post reported,
“Many of the banks that got federal aid to support increased
lending have instead used some of the money to make investments,
repay debts or buy other banks.”
The Daily Beast website broke it
down, “Of the 360 banks that got money through the end of
January, 110 had invested at least some of it, 52 repaid debts,
and 15 bought other banks.”)
Others had invested millions in lobbying reported Pro-publica,
the public interest news site : “The banking industry hasn’t stopped lobbying just
because it’s received billions in bailout money from the government
…. The Hill reports that the eight large banks that
first received bailout funds back in October spent a total of
‘more than $12.4 million in the first half of 2009,’ slightly more
than they spent in the first half of 2008.”
The AP provides more of the individual totals: Bank of
America ($52.5 billion in aid) spent $800,000 lobbying this
spring, up from $660,000 spent in the first three months of
this year, and Citigroup ($50 billion in aid) spent $1.7 million
from April through June, even more than it spent during that
same period in 2008. Even the auto companies spent millions