Has TARP worked?

[RAZOR]

Originally Posted by Bill Bess

I love history, it provides many examples of man's greatest adventures and failures.
You would think our leaders would use this resource as a reference and guide them to better judgements.
Basics are always the best path, be creative, work hard and pay for what you need and don't barrow on the future.

I too love history and find the wisdom of the Founding Fathers timeless and enduring, only if we could have a few of them with us now. Thomas Jefferson did not trust any bank and thought them to be the bane to our fledgling nation, his view was that they were similar to making your living by playing five card stud,(my analogy not his).He thought it was getting rich quick with little work, and it would ruin the work ethic, his vision was everyone should be a gentleman farmer, so he was more than a little extreme in this vein.

He also said, "It is a wise rule and should be fundamental in a government disposed to cherish its credit, and at the same time to restrain the use of it within the limits of its faculties,never to borrow a dollar without laying a tax in the same instant for paying the interest annually, and the principle within a given term; and to consider that tax as pledged to the creditors on the public faith."