Here's an interesting bit from a New York Times' editorial today critical of Barack Obama's home foreclosure prevention policies: The administration’s $75 billion antiforeclosure program, which subsidizes lenders to rework bad loans, has been a big disappointment. One reason is that its usual method of modifying loans — lowering the ...

The Wall Street Journals's Michael R. Crittenden and Marshall Eckblad report: U.S. banks posted last year their sharpest decline in lending since 1942, suggesting that the industry's continued slide is making it harder for the economy to recover. While top-tier banks are recovering at a faster clip, the rest of the industry is still suffering, according to a quarterly report from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Banks fighting for survival, especially those plagued by losses on commercial real estate, are less willing to extend loans, siphoning credit from businesses and consumers.

[caption id="attachment_6739" align="alignleft" width="159" caption="Fannie Mae's not-quite-spartan headquarters"][/caption] ProPublica has a new page tracking what has happened to the $700 billion in "bailout" money Congress appropriated back in 2008 to the Troubled Asset Relief Program. What's made clear is that this is now a bailout of government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Most of the mega-banks that have received bailout money have returned it, however prematurely. But Fannie and Freddie have returned just $4 billion of their original $110 billion bailout. And according to Barack Obama's budget proposal, Fannie and Freddie will need $77 billion more in bailout money. When the financial meltdown happened, many Congressional Republicans claimed that Fannie and Freddie, not investment banks like Lehman Brothers, were the real reason behind the collapse.

Veteran journalist Robert Kaiser tackles the possible formation of a new consumer financial protection agency in the Washington Post.  It looks like a new federal agency is now unlikely, and Kaiser uncovers the simple reason: overreaching in draft legislation for the agency.

Today Treasury Sec. Tim Geithner, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and old Treasury Sec. Henry Paulson testify before the House oversight committee about the Federal Reserve's November 2008 decision that 80 percent taxpayer-owned AIG pay in full its insured contracts. The result from that decision was that banks the Treasury ...

The Wall Street Journal's Michael R. Crittenden and John D. McKinnon report that Neil Barofsky, the inspector general of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, will investigate the Federal Reserve's decision in November 2008 to subsidize AIG's payments to insured counter-parties such as Goldman Sachs. Crittenden and McKinninon write: "Among ...

The New York Times' Peter Goodman has another piece that's critical of the "Making Homes Affordable" Troubled Asset Relief Program, which is supposed to get homeowners out of foreclosure. It's not clear whether MHA -- which Barack Obama said would ...

The Washington Post's Michael Shear and Binyamin Appelbaum report that the Obama administration is considering to insert a one-time fee on bailed out banks as part of its proposed 2010 budget. President Obama has a Feb. 1 deadline to send the new budget to Congress. An inclusion of banking fees make sense politically: it demonstrates that the administration is "tough" on Wall Street and also wants to raise revenues to pay off the national debt. The merits of the policy, though, make less sense.

The New York Times' Mary Williams Walsh reports that the Federal Reserve of New York told AIG to withhold information in its regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Specifically, the New York Fed thought it wasn't such a hot idea for AIG to tell regulators it was ...

The Washington Post's Binyamin Applebaum reports on the Treasury Department's increased investment in auto financier GMAC: Treasury added $3.8 billion to the $12.5 billion in aid they've already provided GMAC. In turn, the federal government now owns a majority stake, 56 percent, of the company. Appelbaum gives the scorecard of what financial firms still get money from Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program: