Mandatory Swine Flu Shots For Firefighters?

September 24, 2009

Info Wars

By Paul Joseph Watson

Firefighters could be added to the list of those mandated to take the dangerous and untested H1N1 vaccine if Parkersburg Fire Department Chief Eric Chichester gets his way, while health workers in Ontario Canada have been told they will not be forced to take the shot.
Firefighters do not work in hospitals, but because they are trained EMT’s, Chichester believes they should get both the seasonal and H1N1 vaccines.
“I plan on getting vaccinated as soon as it’s available,” Chichester said. “Our guys have the choice of getting the regular flu shot, but I’m looking into ways I can make it mandatory for them to receive the H1N1 vaccine,” he told the News and Sentinel.

Capt. Rick Woodyard with the Wood County Sheriff’s Department is quoted in the same article as saying that police will follow the orders of FEMA if there is a widespread H1N1 outbreak.

According to Woodyard, this would involve “guarding injection sites and helping out the medical community.” Whether “helping” the medical community means helping them to carry out forced injections remains to be seen, but it seems there would be little else for law enforcement to do in such a situation other than compel people to follow orders they wouldn’t normally be inclined to.

While health workers across the U.S., notably in Atlanta and New York, are being forced to take the swine flu vaccine as well as the seasonal flu shot or be fired, officials in Ontario Canada have stated that neither health professionals or the general public will be forced to take the vaccine.

Premier Dalton McGuinty told CBC News that the government cannot, “hold anybody down and inject them with a vaccine when they don’t want it.”

Similarly, schools in the U.S. and Canada are making noises indicating that the swine flu shot will not be forced upon children without parental consent. Asotin County Health District Administrator Joe Lillard signaled that kids in Idaho would not be forced to take the vaccine when he told local news channel KLEW-TV 3, “This is not mandatory, it is a voluntary program,” said Lillard. “I strongly encourage parents to get their children immunized, but that’s a personal choice and if they decide they don’t want to do it, it’s there decision.”

However, all this could change if H1N1 returns as a deadlier strain and begins to claim more fatalities, which is exactly what authorities seem to be preparing for as reports of military roadblocks and martial law training drills continue to pour in from all over the country.

Click here for the full report from Info Wars

Choose Natural Sugars When You Have a Sweet Tooth

September 23, 2009

Natural News

By Sheryl Walters

The word is out about the dangers of High Fructose Corn Syrup. This sticky sweet substance shows up in nearly all processed foods and headlines in soft drinks. Studies have linked HFCS to obesity. Caution should be practiced though as sugar in general has gotten a bad rep in the past years. Diets like Atkins and South Beach shun all sugar, natural or not, and have led everyone to question what sugars they eat and where they come from. In a world of myriad choices on how to sweeten your foods, what are the benefits or options of good sweet things out there?

Whole food that happens to be sweet is the best bet, namely fruits and vegetables. These contain fructose. By itself, fructose is not a good option, though studies once thought that it was helpful for diabetics, it actually leads to an increased risk of weight gain. Whole fruits have fiber, vitamins and minerals which balance out the naturally occurring sugars with their beneficial qualities. This is why it is essential to eat the whole fruit to keep blood sugars even.

Fruit has been said to be nature’s candy, though that does not always satisfy our sweet tooth. Reaching for artificial sweeteners might be your calorie free answer, but aspartame and saccharin are dangerous chemicals that the FDA link to 75% of adverse food additive reactions.

Real sugar can have its place in a balanced diet; though, take the time to find whole natural sources of sugar. Cleaner options include honey, sourced locally and organic if possible. Raw honey in particular has made its way onto the health market, since none of the nutrients which make honey a healing food have been destroyed.

Maple syrup can be experimented with to sweeten desserts. Agave, a honey like sweet syrup, is currently a hot trend since it doesn’t cause high spikes in blood sugar. Sucanat, Raw Sugar and Turbinado are less refined versions of real sugar that can be used in coffee, tea, baking and cooking; but what are these? Found in health food stores, Sucanat is a form of the sugar plant where the sugar and the existing molasses are kept together and never separated (brown sugar is when the molasses is taken out and added back in, creating a highly processed sugar.) Turbinado is made from the first pressing of the sugar cane plant, resulting in larger crystals and a truer molasses type flavor. Date sugar is made from dates and not refined like cane sugar.

Though calories for these sugars are similar to refined white sugar, they are less processed, offer some minor benefits and act more with your body more than against it. To stay sweet the right way, just make sure the amount of sugar in your diet does not account for more than 10% of your daily calories.

Click here for the full report from Natural News

Chemical Cocktail in Consumer Products Destroys Male Fertility

September 23, 2009

Natural News

By David Gutierrez

Hormone-disrupting chemicals found in a variety of consumer products are destroying male reproductive health, according to a report released by the nonprofit CHEM Trust.

An increasing number of widely used chemicals are being exposed as endocrine disruptors, many of them ingredients in plastics, cosmetics, cleaning products and even food. Most of these simulate the action of the female sex hormone estrogen.

According to report author Richard Sharpe of the Medical Research Council, long-term exposure to a wide variety of these chemicals is probably to blame, at least in part, for rising incidence of a condition known as Testicular Dysgenisis Syndrome (TDS). Exposure to endocrine disruptors can “feminize” male children even in the womb, he said, by blocking the activity of the male sex hormone testosterone

TDS refers to a collection of observed disorders of the male reproductive system, including reduced sperm counts, malformed penis and testicular cancer.

While exposure to one endocrine disruptor might not have a great effect, Sharpe said, there are so many different chemicals out there that their cumulative results must be taken into account.

“Because it is the summation of effect of hormone-disrupting chemicals that is critical, and the number of such chemicals that humans are exposed to is considerable, this provides the strongest possible incentive to minimize human exposure to all relevant hormone disruptors, especially women planning pregnancy, as it is obvious that the higher the exposure the greater the risk,” he said.

“Chemicals that have been shown to act together to affect male reproductive health should have their risks assessed together,” said Elizabeth Salter Green of the CHEM Trust. “Currently that is not the case, and unfortunately chemicals are looked at on an individual basis. Therefore, government assurances that exposures are too low to have any effect just do not hold water because regulators do not take into account the additive actions of hormone disrupting chemicals.”

“It is high time that public health policy is based on good science and that regulatory authorities have health protection, rather than industry protection, uppermost in mind,” she said.

Click here for the full article from Natural News

Huge California Study Concludes Soda Consumption Undeniably Linked to Obesity

September 23, 2009

Natural News

By Mike Adams

Much like Big Tobacco once did with nicotine, the soda industry and high-fructose corn syrup producers of America have maintained a ridiculous state of flat-out denial about the links between soda consumption and obesity. “Sodas don’t make you fat,” they insist. Meanwhile, as Americans guzzle down insanely large quantities of soda and liquid sugar with each passing year, rates of obesity and diabetes continue to steadily climb. Surely diet must have something to do with it, right?

Thanks to a new California study, soda companies can no longer hide behind the defense of uncertainty when it comes to links between soda consumption and obesity. This massive study questioned the soda consumption habits of 43,000 adults and 4,000 adolescents and concluded this: Drinking one or more sodas a day increases your chances of obesity by 27 percent. A whopping 62% of adults who drink at least one soda each day are overweight or obese.

The study also found that Californians are gulping down sodas at an unprecedented rate: At least one soda is consumed daily by 41 percent of children, 62 percent of adolescents and 24 percent of adults. Through the study, another shocking statistic was revealed: The average California teen consumes 39 pounds of liquid sugar a year solely from soda consumption.

Sadly, the study didn’t look at rates of diabetes and bone loss — the phosphoric acid in sodas causes osteoporosis, even in males — but there’s little doubt that a similar correlation exists between soda consumption and those diseases, too. The whole issue of aspartame and diet sodas also wasn’t looked at in this study, but that’s yet another important area of investigation that will probably be delayed for many years until the number of people drinking diet soda who get diagnosed with brain cancer can no longer be denied.

We’ve been warning about this for years

The interesting thing about all this is that the champions of natural health have been warning society about this for years. Whether you’re talking about myself and NaturalNews, or Dr. Julian Whitaker, or even going back to Weston Price, we’ve all been shouting about the dangers of widespread cola consumption long before it appeared on the radar of mainstream consciousness.

Now, in the thick of a disastrous epidemic of obesity and diabetes, more mainstream health authorities are finally starting to put the pieces together and realize just how bad sodas are for public health. There’s now no question about it: When soda consumption goes up, so do rates of obesity. And with higher obesity rates, you automatically get greatly increased rates of diabetes, cancer, heart disease, depression and other diseases that are very expensive to treat.

Ultimately, that means that soda consumption greatly increases the health care costs of any nation, because higher soda consumption leads to higher rates of diseases that are expensive to treat. I’m guessing that for every dollar a consumer spends on soda, another dollar’s worth of long-term health care cost is created at the same time. Except those costs are paid directly by the consumer; they’re paid by the taxpayers and health insurance customers.

Click here to continue reading the full article from Natural News

U.S. Pharmaceutical Factories Dumping Huge Quantities of Drugs Into Public Sewers, Rivers and Waterways

September 24, 2009

Natural News

By David Gutierrez

In spite of claims by pharmaceutical companies that they do not discharge their products into the water supply, federal researchers have discovered that waters downstream of pharmaceutical plants are more heavily contaminated with drug residue than waters elsewhere in the country.

In one study, conducted by scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), researchers tested the water entering two water treatment plants down the sewer line of several pharmaceutical factories, as well as at other plants not receiving sewage from drug plants. Researchers discovered drugs at “much higher detection frequencies and concentrations” at the plants receiving effluent from pharmaceutical factories. Drugs detected included opiates, a barbiturate and a tranquilizer.

In a second study, researchers from the Environmental Protection Agency tested the water entering a wastewater treatment plant in the city of Kalamazoo, Mich., down the sewage line from a Pfizer drug factory. They found that the water entering the plant was exceptionally high in levels of the antibiotic lincomycin, which the factory was producing at that time.

“There’s some product going down the drain,” said Bruce Merchant, the city’s public services director.

Prior studies have shown that lincomycin can cause genetic mutations, and that it encourages the growth of cancer cells when combined with minute concentrations of a number of other drugs that are common in surface water.

The two studies are among the first to test longstanding claims by the pharmaceutical industry that factory emissions are not a significant source of drug residue in drinking water supplies.

“It’s critical that those types of assumptions are confirmed through real testing,” USGS researcher Herb Buxton said.

Research outside of the United States also suggests that pharmaceutical companies are major sources of drug pollution. In Switzerland, a test by drug company Roche found that a full 0.2 percent of active drug ingredients enter the environment during the manufacturing process. Another study found that 100 pounds of the antibiotic ciproflaxin were entering the water every day from a drug factory in India.

Click here for the full report from Natural News

Swine Flu Vaccine Recipients Could Be Tracked With RFID Bracelets Using Big Brother Medical Technology

September 24, 2009

Natural News

By Mike Adams

Here’s the scene from some dark, present-day action movie: David Balfour breathed hard. He could hear the thumping of heavy boots outside his door, down the hall, mixed with the muffled grunts of military men. He had known they would come. It was obvious from the moment he refused the VaxTrax bracelet at the county clinic. They said it would keep him safe because they could pinpoint his location if he ever suffered a heart attack or an accident. As a bonus, his entire medical history was also imprinted in the RFID chip, so even if he was found unconscious, they could determine his medical status and start treatment right away.

But he had refused on the spot. David didn’t want to be tracked. So he walked away from the clinic, without the vaccine and without the bracelet.

That was stupid, he now realized. They had apparently tracked him anyway… somehow… and now they were at his door, and their fists pounded loudly.

“Boston Police! Open up!”

He glanced at the window behind him. Too late to plan an escape route. Maybe he should have thought of that earlier, but no, fleeing out the window was the stuff of Hollywood fiction, not here-and-now reality in Boston, Massachusetts.

“Mr. Balfour!” the police shouted. “You have ten seconds to open this door, or we are coming in.”

They weren’t bluffing. Pretending he wasn’t home clearly wouldn’t work. Maybe he could talk his way out of it. “I’ve broken no law!” he screamed back at the door.

“Mr. Balfour,” came the voice in authoritative tones, “You have refused to wear the VaxTrax bracelet as mandated by the National Pandemic Protection Act, and as we cannot determine your vaccination status, you are considered a danger to the people of this city.”

“You have five seconds.”

There was no way to fight this, he realized. So David stood, reached out to the door and began to slide the locking mechanism open…

BAM! The door burst open, striking David across the chest and forehead, flinging him backwards, stumbling, then collapsing with a gasp onto the living room floor. A mass of armored military men swarmed into the room, grabbed his wrists and forced his hands behind his back to be painfully handcuffed. He tried to scream but discovered himself too disoriented to find his voice. All he could do was hurt.

The scramble was over in seconds. He found himself face down, nose buried into the patterns of his living room rug, half conscious, with a hard knee pressed sharply into his kidney. There was a pause.

Then he heard footsteps… not those of military boots, but the soft shuffling of worn walking shoes. This was someone different, someone more… civilian.

“I’m doctor Argosy,” a voice hummed above and behind him. “Mr. Balfour, you are now going to receive an FDA-approved H1N1 vaccination and be fitted with a VaxTrax bracelet. Please remain calm.”

So this is what it has come to, he thought. Face down on the floor of his own home, a squad of vaccine enforcers standing on his back, a pair of handcuffs, a shattered front door, a probable black eye and a doctor, hidden from view, about to inject him with something he knew couldn’t possibly be safe.

The vaccine shot itself was painless and quick. Maybe it was the adrenaline, he thought, that masked the pain. He felt the cold plastic of a tracking bracelet being zipped around his wrist, then the handcuffs slid away and the pressure in his back released. “There, Mr. Balfour. You’re all set,” said the voice of the doctor. “Have a nice day.”

Before leaving, one of the police officers leaned close to him, almost whispering in his ear, “And don’t try to take off your VaxTrax, or we’ll know, and we’ll have to come back here.”

They marched out almost as quickly as they had entered, stomping down the hall for a few moments, and then the sounds paused. A pounding on another door broke the silence. David heard them shouting through the door of his neighbor’s apartment. “Mrs. Henderson, open up. This is the Boston Police!”…

This may not be fiction for very long
The above fictional account may not remain fiction for long. Late last year, the city of Boston began fitting vaccine recipients with RFID tracking bracelets, allowing health authorities to visually track the vaccine status of city residents on a large digital map. This map shows the location and status of anyone wearing an RFID tracking bracelet, thereby revealing areas of the city where vaccination rates are low, too…

Click here to continue reading the full article from Natural News

Young Children Need 2 Doses of H1N1 Vaccine

September 21, 2009

Reuters

By Maggie Fox

Younger children will need two doses of the vaccine against the new pandemic of H1N1 influenza, U.S. officials said on Monday.

They said tests of Sanofi-Pasteur’s swine flu vaccine showed children respond to it just as they do to seasonal flu vaccines, with children over 10 needing only a single dose but children under 9 needing two.

Separately, Sanofi said it had won a U.S. government order for 27.3 million more doses of its vaccine and AstraZeneca’s MedImmune unit said the U.S. government has ordered 29 million more doses of its needle-free vaccine.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said young children will likely need to have their doses 21 days apart. But he said they could receive seasonal flu shots and H1N1 shots on the same day — something that could ease the logistics of vaccinating children multiple times.

“As we had hoped, in children the 2009 H1N1 vaccine is acting just like the seasonal flu vaccine,” Fauci told reporters in a telephone briefing.

Children aged 10 to 17 mounted an immune response that should protect them from H1N1 within 8 to 10 days, Fauci said.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 46 U.S. children have died from swine flu, which appears to have first emerged in Mexico in March and which spread around the world to cause a pandemic in only six weeks.

As soon as the new virus was identified, the U.S. government and companies started making a vaccine against it and testing began in August to ensure it was safe and to determine what dose would be needed.

About 25 companies globally are now making H1N1 vaccine.

The United States had ordered 195 million doses of H1N1 vaccine from five makers — GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi, Australia’s CSL, MedImmune and Novartis. With the new orders from Sanofi and MedImmune, that would make more than 250 million doses.

MORE TO GO AROUND

Most countries ordered H1N1 vaccine with the expectation that two doses would be needed, so many now have more than anticipated.

The CDC has designated about 160 million people to be vaccinated first, including pregnant women, people with heart disease, asthma or diabetes and school-aged children.

With seasonal flu vaccine, children under 9 who are getting a flu vaccine for the first time need two doses, so Fauci said it is likely that young children who have never had a flu vaccine before will need four doses this year — two seasonal flu doses and two swine flu doses.

But that may not mean four visits to a clinic or doctor’s office, the CDC’s Dr. Anne Schuchat said. “We do expect, based on what we know about vaccines, that it should be fine for the shot to be given on the same day,” she said.

It gets a bit more complicated with MedImmune’s nasal spray vaccine, she said. Children getting that needle-free vaccine will likely need to get FluMist, the seasonal version, separately from the swine flu formulated nose spray.

H1N1 is now the dominant strain of influenza circulating globally and Fauci said it is possible it may replace the seasonal form of H1N1 also circulating.

“If you look at the history of where new viruses come in, frequently what they do is come back the next year and displace one or even more than one of the circulating strains,” he said. “It is a distinct possibility that this might ultimately be incorporated into a seasonal flu vaccine.”

Click here for the full report from Reuters

FDIC Weighs Extraordinary Steps to Shore Up Fund

September 22, 2009

Yahoo! News

By Daniel Wagner

FDIC weighs extraordinary steps, including loans from banks, to shore up insurance fund

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is weighing several costly — and never-before-used — options as it struggles to shore up the dwindling fund that insures bank deposits.

The agency is considering borrowing billions from healthy banks. Alternatively, it may impose a special fee on the banking industry.

Each option carries risk: Drawing money from healthy banks would take dollars out of the private sector, making that money unavailable for investment in the weak economy. But charging the whole industry a fee to replenish the fund could push weaker banks toward failure.

A third option — borrowing from the Treasury — is politically unpalatable, since it would resemble another taxpayer-financed bailout.

A fourth option would be to have banks pay their regular insurance premiums early. But this idea wouldn’t solve the fund’s long-term cash needs.

“The bottom line is, there’s no good solution,” said Jaret Seiberg, an analyst with the research firm Concept Capital. “This is a fight over which option is least bad.”

The FDIC is expected to propose a solution, possibly combining two or more of the options, at a board meeting next week.

Bank failures since the financial crisis struck have drained the fund to its lowest level since 1992, at the peak of the savings-and-loan crisis. The fund insures deposit bank accounts of up to $250,000.

Officials have approached big, healthy banks about making loans to the agency, said two industry officials familiar with the conversations, who requested anonymity because the plans are still evolving. Doing so would help the agency avoid tapping a $100 billion credit line with the Treasury — something FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair is reluctant to do.

But taking billions from large, healthy banks would remove that money from the private sector and prevent it from being invested. That could slow an economic recovery, analysts said.

Industry and government officials said Tuesday that plan was still on the table. But FDIC spokesman Andrew Gray downplayed its likelihood, saying, “It’s an option, but it’s not being given serious consideration.”

The FDIC also could levy a special emergency fee on the industry. That would allow the healthiest banks to keep more capital for investment. But it could drive shakier banks toward failure — further depleting the fund. Losses on commercial real estate and other loans are causing multiple bank failures each week.

Banks already have paid one extra fee this year. And Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan, who holds one of the FDIC board’s five votes, has cautioned against saddling them with another.

Discussing the option last week, Bair acknowledged, “We don’t want to stress the industry too much at this time, when they’re still in the process of recovery.”

Bair also said then that the agency might collect banks’ regular insurance premiums early to infuse the fund with cash. An exemption would likely be provided for banks that are too weak to pay in advance.

This plan would solve the fund’s immediate cash needs. But Seiberg called it “a one-time gimmick” that would merely delay another special assessment.

Because the FDIC expects bank failures to cost the fund around $70 billion through 2013, a short-term boost may not be the answer, Seiberg said.

The banking industry and lobbyists oppose another fee. They also want Bair to avoid tapping the Treasury credit line, because it would lead to higher insurance premiums for banks as the FDIC repays the money.

In a letter Monday to Bair, American Bankers Association CEO Ed Yingling endorsed borrowing from the banks or collecting regular premiums early as alternatives to charging another fee.

The special fee imposed earlier this year is hurting banks, already stressed from depressed income and increased loan losses, Yingling said. Another one “may do more harm than good,” he said.

One advantage of having big banks lend to the insurance fund would be to give healthy banks a safe harbor for their money and limit their risk-taking, said Daniel Alpert, managing director of the investment bank Westwood Capital LLC in New York.

Click here to continue reading the full article from Yahoo! News

U.S. Issues $7 Trillion Debt, Supply to Stabilize

September 23, 2009

Yahoo! News

By Burton Frierson

The U.S. government will have issued $7 trillion in bonds by the time the current fiscal year ends next week, but it expects the debt deluge to stabilize by mid 2010, a Treasury official said on Wednesday.

Though markets and the economy are improving, efforts to provide a firm foundation for recovery will require increases to the U.S. Treasury’s conventional bonds going forward, as well as debt securities that are indexed to inflation.

However, this expansion may take place in an environment where investors consider leaving the safe-haven Treasury market for riskier assets, and debt issuance is likely to level off mid next year, said Treasury Acting Assistant Secretary for Financial Markets Karthik Ramanathan.

“In fiscal year 2009, which ends next week, Treasury will have issued $7 trillion in gross issuance — that’s in a 12-month period,” Ramanathan told a financial markets conference in New York.

“This issuance was necessary to meet nearly $1.7 trillion in net marketable borrowing needs, nearly $1 trillion more than what we raised last year,” he added.

DEMAND TO WANE

The heavily-indebted U.S. government has seen tremendous demand for Treasury debt securities this year due to a flight-to-quality into the safe haven assets.

However, Ramanathan said some of this demand would begin to taper off and investors were likely to favor other sectors as the financial markets recovery continues.

“Rather than being discouraged by this move to more risky assets we should actually be encouraged,” he said. “It is the natural progression from the state we were in last year.”

The collapse of Lehman Brothers investment bank in September 2008 sparked the massive migration toward safe-haven assets, though the stock market has been in a remarkable rally since the spring.

Investors have also returned in numbers to the corporate debt market, which suffered during last year’s turmoil.

There is still a long way to go toward market and economic stabilization but good progress is taking place, Ramanathan said, adding that officials were no longer focused “on LIBOR/OIS spreads on a daily or hourly basis.”

“We still have a long way to go and…there are going to be bumps along the way, but at least we’re seeing the signs of traction,” he added.

The LIBOR/OIS spread is a market measure that reflects the difference between the cost of so-called risk-free borrowing, such as that done by the U.S. Treasury, and lending to the private sector, which is normally considered less safe.

LONGER MATURITIES?

When asked whether the Treasury would consider offering a longer maturity bond in the future, Ramanathan said, “We are content with our current suite of securities.”

The Treasury’s longest maturity is the 30-year bond.

However, issuance will increase in the near term, as has been the case all year.

“Going forward we expect to increase both nominal and inflation indexed coupon issuance incrementally and gradually over the next nine months to extend the average maturity of the debt,” he said.

Due to structural changes in the budget deficit, Ramanathan said he expected the average maturity of the debt to stabilize at six to seven years, exceeding historic averages of five years.

However, he said he expected coupon debt securities, or the bonds Treasury issues, to stabilize next summer and potentially go down toward the end of next year.

Click here for the full report from Yahoo! News

TARP Inspector to Say Transparency ‘Attitude’ on Bailout Frustrating

September 24, 2009

The Hill

By Silla Brush

The government is failing to disclose the full details of how the $700 billion bailout of the financial sector has been implemented, the program’s top government watchdog will say on Thursday.

Neil Barofsky, the Special Inspector General over the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), will testify to Congress that the government’s “basic attitude” on the transparency and accountability of the program “remains a significant frustration.”

“TARP largely remains a program in which taxpayers are not being told what most of the TARP recipients are doing with their money and will not be told the full details of how their money is being invested,” Barofsky will say.

The Obama administration has worked to increase the transparency of the TARP program, which began in October 2008 at the height of the financial crisis, and Barofsky will say the TARP program has become less opaque since his office got under way in December.

“Treasury remains committed to working closely with all of our overseers to ensure taxpayer funds are used prudently and effectively,” a Treasury Department spokesman said. “Treasury has already implemented the vast majority of their recommendations and has worked actively to incorporate SIGTARP early in the development of processes regarding TARP programs.”

Despite his concerns about transparency and accountability, Barofsky will testify the TARP program has been essential to shoring up the economy and restoring a measure of stability to the economy.

However, the government will likely never be repaid all the money it invested, according to Barofsky. Forty-one banks have already repaid more than a combined $70 billion, but hundreds of banks, General Motors, Chrysler, AIG and the broader housing market continue to rely on the program.

“It is extremely unlikely that the taxpayer will see a full return on its TARP investment,” Barofsky will say.

Democrats increasingly praise the TARP program as a necessary step that helped the economy avert a meltdown, and they have lauded the repaid money as evidence that the rescue package is working. Meanwhile, Republicans are critical of the program for extending taxpayer money to failing private companies and creating a culture where troubled businesses look to the federal government for a bailout.

Barofsky also will warn that it is unclear that the government rescue package has done much to increase the amount of bank lending or yet to remove toxic assets from bank balance sheets. Those were two of the program’s initial aims. Moreover, the commercial real estate market “might be the next proverbial shoe to drop,” Barofsky will caution.

The Treasury Department soon will start to report more details about how TARP recipients are using the money, including their total investments and their repayments of debt obligations. The department will not report on how specific firms allocate funds. “We remain puzzled as to why Treasury refuses to adopt our recommendation to report on each TARP recipient’s use of TARP funds,” Barofsky will say.

Click here for to continue reading the full report from The Hill

« Previous Page — Next Page »