A group of banks that turned down TARP funds have outperformed banks that received gobs of support. It just goes to show that not all banks needed a rescue.

It’s nearly one year after the big crash, and the financial system is still functioning.

Most banks didn’t go out of business or get taken over. Your ATM still spits out cash, and Wall Street seems to be returning to some sense of normalcy.

That’s obviously good news. And what’s even more encouraging is that the age of big bank bailouts is hopefully coming to a close.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Thursday in an appearance before the Congressional Oversight Panel that it is time to “begin winding down some of the extraordinary support we put in place for the financial system.”

Extraordinary support is an understatement. AIG (AIG, Fortune 500) has become a ward of the state. Taxpayers now own a third of Citigroup (C, Fortune 500). And Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) has received $45 billion in funding from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

But as we all look back on the events of the past year, it’s important to remember that not all banks and financial firms got blinded by greed and stung by reckless behavior.

It’s tempting to demonize the entire banking world. But there are several regional and community banks that had the guts to tell the government that they didn’t want any bailout money because they didn’t want to be beholden to the Treasury Department. And, perhaps more importantly, they simply didn’t need it.

Tags: banking, banks, business, financial

This entry was posted on Monday, September 14th, 2009 at 10:08 am and is filed under Global Financial, Global Recession, US Deficit, US Finance, US Inflation, World Financial. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.