Fortune offers an insider view of how the TARP bailout unfolded. Clearly, it was a not so subtle dance between government officials and top banking CEOs. The article is based on some FOIA-generated email disclosure. It seems to me, in the end, both sides have been tarnished.

"As they repay TARP money, executives at stable institutions are vowing they will never again be tethered to a fickle Washington and a vindictive Congress." The color is nice: "Treasury staffers had set up individual offices for the bankers so that they could call their boards and other colleagues without leaving the building. By 6:25, all nine executives had scrawled their signatures on single white sheets of Treasury paper, inserting the amount, in tens of billions, that they had been told to accept." 

For more:
- here's the article

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