Just when you thought it was safe to put your shoes on and go about your day, we get this:

Where’d the bailout money go?

a more articulate version of this rant is available at HotAir

WASHINGTON – It’s something any bank would demand to know before handing out a loan: Where’s the money going?

Not exactly, they just want to know how to get the collateral if you default, but let’s continue

But after receiving billions in aid from U.S. taxpayers, the nation’s largest banks say they can’t track exactly how they’re spending the money or they simply refuse to discuss it.

Whoa, wait a sec, for a moment there I thought you said…oh wait, you did

“We’ve lent some of it. We’ve not lent some of it. We’ve not given any accounting of, ‘Here’s how we’re doing it,’” said Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, which received $25 billion in emergency bailout money. “We have not disclosed that to the public. We’re declining to.”

Translation: “thanks for the dough you suckers, have a nice day”

Ok, so it’s just JPM&C right, surely other banks will be more grateful and cooperative, right? (and don’t call me Shirley)

The Associated Press contacted 21 banks that received at least $1 billion in government money and asked four questions: How much has been spent? What was it spent on? How much is being held in savings, and what’s the plan for the rest?

None of the banks provided specific answers.

Excuse me WHAT?!

Yup, you heard right, NONE of them are cooperating, a few gave ambiguous answers like “we put all the money in a big pile and burn spend it all from there”

Now sure, you could stretch that, (ignoring common sense and your accountant friend that works at a bank) and it almost sounds believable, but you think they could have made some exception considering this was taxpayer money that they did absolutely nothing to earn or deserve?

Good thing the whole TARP idea came with strict oversight and accountability, or else we’d never be able to track that money.

Wait…don’t tell me….

Since it was such an “emergency” and “the world as we know it could end”, TARP was passed without most congressmen even reading it.  And per CNN, and anyone not voting for it was a “detached rich guy with a political agenda”…helloo, have you met Henry Paulson?

Read the full story if you like, but it doesn’t get any better.

Congress recently summoned a handful of bank execs and “asked” them to please start lending money.  Know why they asked them that?  Because that’s all they could do - ask.

Since Paulson decided to write checks to banks instead of buying an actual physical asset, toxic as it may be, we now have absolutely nothing to show for our money.

I have an idea for the next $350B - DONT SPEND IT!  But since that’ll never happen, how about this:

The US population is roughly 310 Million so you could cut a check for about $1125 to each man, woman & child in America.  At least then we’d know where it went.

DMobile Economic Bailout, Paulson, thievery