WashingtonExaminer – Congress Turns Up Pressure On IRS, Demands Answers From White House, Treasury – 28 June 2014

Washington Examiner

Congress broadened its investigation of the Internal Revenue Service‘s targeting of conservative groups and the disappearance of two years’ worth of subpoenaed emails Friday by demanding that the White House and Treasury Department answer specific questions regarding the scandal.

Read the full story at: www.washingtonexaminer.com /link to original article

Daniel Gross – Contrary Indicator – Three Banks Return $22 Million In TARP Funds – 12 June 2012

Nearly four years after the Lehman Brothers debacle, the government rescue efforts and bailouts continue to wind down. The central component of the TARP was the Capital Purchase Program (CPP), under which Treasury purchased preferred shares in hundreds of banks and received warrants in return. Banks started to return the capital in June 2009, with the largest institutions repaying first. In all, CPP recipients took public funds. Banks have returned $190.26 of that capital. Add in dividends ($11.68 billion), gains on the sale of Citigroup common stock ($6.85 billion), and funds received from the sale of warrants ($7.67 billion) and the CPP has turned a “profit” thus far of about $11.6 billion. (Here’s the most recent TARP summary).

John Ward – Crash 2 : Why Has The Treasury Revoked Debt-Trading Sections Of A 1939 Act – Without Telling Parliament? – 29 May 2012

How a hidden order could be used to bankrupt the UK

Those of us who spend too much time watching government at its dirty work know the phrase ‘statutory instrument’, or SI, rather too well. Oddly enough, they are not tools for poking statues of eminent Conservatives. They are what has become more commonly known as legal instruments. New Labour of not entirely blessed memory passed 37,218 of them…usually as a means of getting something done about which they didn’t want a debate.