Vanity Fair.. and the TARP form

I'd always wondered what was required of the institutions that got the federal bailout money. I now have my answer. My latest edition of Vanity Fair magazine has shed some light on this. I have seen this TARP form, it is get this... 2 pages, count them, 2 pages long and has just 20 questions. I am copying and posting part of the column. I urge you to go check out the form at VF.com under the archives of the August 2009 edition. I love it! You have more questions just to sign up for a telephone line, yet these people received billions, just by answering probing questions like "what is your telephone #?"

"Have you seen the application the banks had to fill out to receive their slice of the multi-billion-dollar tarp pie? It runs just two pages, with a mere 20 questions. Two pages. Twenty questions. If you wanted to open an account with FedEx to send the application back to the Treasury, you’d have to fill out a three-page, 74-question form. Even when you’re giving money to the bank, not the other way around, a checking-account application at Citibank (with minimum required deposit) is six pages long and has 46 questions. The California food-stamps application is five pages long and comprises 38 questions. The Treasury must have some misplaced trust in bankers and other such miscreants, for, unlike on the California food-stamps application, there is no place on the tarp form where someone has to certify “under penalty of perjury” that all the information provided on the application is “true, correct and complete.”

V.F. reporter-researcher Matt Kapp decodes the TARP application form, which makes a food-stamp application look like the Oxford English Dictionary.
One of the more revealing tarp questions is the following: “Describe Any Condition, Including A Representation Or Warranty, Contained In The Investment Agreements And Related Documentation, The Institution Believes it Cannot Comply With By November 14, 2008 And Provide A Timeline For Reaching Compliance.1” The footnote says that the timeline can come as an attachment, as long as it’s “no longer than 1 page.” One page. I promise you, I’m not making this up. If this isn’t the epitome of Bush-era oversight, I don’t know what is. See the complete tarp application for yourself—all two pages of it."

Gotta love it!