Neil M. Barofsky, who resigned in March as special inspector general for the bank bailout, described the assessments and penalties as a "lost opportunity" to hold lenders more accountable.
In Stiglitz's anguished, withering assessment, the bailouts approved by the Bush and Obama Administrations amount to a colossal transfer of public wealth into private hands, a transfer he compares to Russia's giveaways to the oligarchs.
Indeed, credit rating agencies incorporate future government bailouts into their assessments of the largest banks, exaggerating market distortions that provide them with an unfair advantage over smaller institutions, which continue to struggle.
The F.D.I.C. must "expeditiously" recover any losses to the government from the bailout by imposing a special assessment on all of its member banks.
This comprehensive assessment of the bailout goes beyond the relatively small Troubled Asset Relief Program TARPP) to look at the rest of the Treasury and Federal Reserve's multi-trillion dollar response to the financial crisis.
Contrary to the Obama administration's claims, the bailouts of the financial and auto industries have not turned a profit for the U.S. government and may never turn a profit, according to a grim new assessment by the bailout's watchdog.
This does not reflect greater confidence in German solvency; if anything, investors are less confident in that respect, as the potential costs of a peripheral bailout start to get reflected in credit assessments of the core economies.
Senate aides familiar with the legislation said the bailout would be paid for by a one-time assessment on tobacco companies.
Just hours before the Greek parliament's crucial vote to push through fresh austerity measures required by the new bailout plan, the International Monetary Fund released a devastating assessment of the beleagured nation's finances.
Mr Schäuble knows better than most the many doubts that surround even a second vast bailout of Greece (see this report of the IMF's assessment).
