TARP as Ultimate Sting?

TARP Mystery . . . Solved!

OK, it's taken me almost a year to puzzle out, but I think I've finally got it:

Superficially, the hundreds of billions in TARP money handed over to the financial sector's worst actors only looks like a stupendous reward for failure -- and not a little like ransom money, paid to keep the rest of the economy from cratering.

Ah, but that's only appearances.

What the TARP money really is . . . shhh! . . . is a super-sophisticated government sting, brilliantly designed to smoke out and then nab society's greediest and sneakiest operators.

Follow the Money

Think of the TARP money as bait.

Sort of like what banks do when they put invisible dye on cash in tellers' drawers, so that they can catch robbers red-handed after-the-fact (actually, blue-handed). Or, if you want a more graphic (but apt) analogy, like the dye you ingest as part of a colonoscopy.

Once the plan is put in motion, you wait, and watch; then, as the malefactors convert the cash to their own, private benefit . . . you pounce! You confiscate the ill-gotten plunder, return it to its rightful owners (taxpayers), and apprehend the perpetrators.

Memo to government "handlers": any time now, guys . . .

P.S.: of course, even if all this were true, you'd expect Wall Street to beat the charges. Their likely defense? Entrapment. (EnTARPment?)