Another TARP bank pays the nation back

This week it’s Bank of America. Good to see the money back in public coffers, but this move doesn’t exonerate the company for its malfeasance over the past year. At any rate it’s another $45 billion in bailout dollars the taxpayers get back, plus an extra $2.54 billion in Treasury payments.

Of course do you think BofA, or any other of the TARP banks for that matter, would be magnanimously paying the public back so quickly if the Feds hadn’t cracked down this year and seized control of executive pay and other business functions? I want the banking industry working outside of government influence, but I also want the banking industry working without using public money with no-strings-attached.