We've been talking piecemeal about the decent returns the government seems to be racking up when it comes to bailouts of specific firms. Certainly, the government scored some big wins on banks such as Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) and others, via dividends, warrants sales and repayments.

According to calculations by SNL Financial, the government has earned an annualized 8.5 percent return from the bailout of 49 financial firms. Goldman Sachs alone yielded a 20 percent return, notes Reuters. Citigroup (NYSE: C) was excluded from the analysis, as were other banks that have not fully paid off their TARP (TARP news) obligations. However, it certainly looks like Citigroup will yield big positive returns.

The question marks are smaller banks, which are struggling and have no real hope of getting out of the TARP program soon. GMAC (GMAC news) is also a big question mark. But for big banks anyway, it appears as though the bailout has averted a massive financial disaster for taxpayers. 

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