As US
banks clambered to repay their TARP proceeds last month, Mark Sainsbury of
First State Super made a typically biting point at an AIST forum – will those
banks also repay the private capital and additional business income they were
able to generate while operat­ing with taxpayer-funded goodwill?

“We don’t want
banks thinking they can repay the TARP money and press the re-set button, and
six months from now be back doing the sorts of things that got us into this
crisis.” Perhaps Tim Geithner will raise this in the “Dear Jimmy” letter he
sends in reply to the sarcastic ‘thanks for noth­ing’ note that James Dimon,
JPMorgan chief executive, joked he would send the Treasury Secretary on
repayment of his bank’s TARP funds.