It's nice to be a president, running for re-election, with trillions in taxpayer dollars to play around with. Case in point; a bank that has received more than $16 billion in TARP funds should be sold to save the taxpayer money, but the Treasury Department is delaying the inevitable until after the election. Ally Financial isn't really a "bank" in the truest sense of the word. They were formerly known as General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC) and were sold back in 2006 to Cerberus Capital Management for $14 billion. GM needed the cash and GMAC was an attractive buy because it had invested heavily in the sub-prime mortgage bubble. Then came the crunch and Ally Financial needed a big bailout. But they lacked the capital to be defined as a "bank," so the Fed decided to designate them a "bank holding company" and showered them with a $16 billion over the next few years. "Unlike most of the financial institutions that received extraordinary bailouts, the bailouts of Chrysler's...(Read Full Post)