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American Express is now a bank and can't wait for its bailout money

Wed, 11/12/2008 - 3:37pm — WRhouse

(Via The Consumerist by way of Bloomberg and WSJ

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke helped waive the 30-day waiting period, so that Amex could start to start loot/access the TARP (Trouble Asset Relief Program). Congress passed TARP to buy up troubled mortgage assets , which the Fed no longer wants to do now. So it appears that Bernanke wants to use it to help businesses that are facing problems from bad car loans, regular loans and credit card debt instead.

Oh, and Capital One is already in line to get a paltry $3.5 billion from the fund. I'm so glad home owners got some mortgage/debt relief from this bill.

History note from Bloomberg:
"The move to become a commercial bank comes almost 15 years after American Express spun off investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. to investors. American Express got into the brokerage business in the 1980s with acquisitions, including the purchase of Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb in 1984. Amid losses that stretched into the 1990s, the company shed its investment-banking operations. "

Didn't Lehman Brothers have someting to with this mess to begin with?

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Can I Bz a bank nao plz?

By Randall Kohn on Wed, 11/12/2008 - 6:55pm

"You'd better get this straight. Wise up before it's too late." -- Sister Sledge

—

JFK has been shot, we miss him a lot
He always knew what to do
-- Philly Cream

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Does AmEx benefit more from TARP handout or from the new tax

By jawbone on Wed, 11/12/2008 - 7:58pm

change for banks?

WaPo article on the secret Treasury order.

Just another little bennie to the Big Banker Boyz.

... In the midst of this late-September drama, the Treasury Department issued a five-sentence notice that attracted almost no public attention.

But corporate tax lawyers quickly realized the enormous implications of the document: Administration officials had just given American banks a windfall of as much as $140 billion.

Lost tax revenue? Do we add that to the bailout costs?

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