The Troubled Asset Relief Program - better named the Blighted Asset Relief Fund - was an exchange of assets. Banks and financial firms got rid of dubious and hard to liquidate securities and were able to get cash and guarantees that the Fed or the government would pick future losses on other dubious securities.

This made banks wealthier and the Federal Reserve and taxpayers poorer. It generated income for lobbyists. It also stopped a wholesale financial collapse which is not such a bad thing.

So far it has not generated a dollar worth of additional credit or - in Wonks Anonymous view - saved anyone's house from foreclosure. Maybe in ten years the banks will take the cash that we have given them and start making loans again - after we have suffered enough to prove ourselves worthy.

TARP could have been better executed but even if the government were to take over the banks it would still take a few years to sort out their books and get private investment going again.

We want to save. We need to save. Every day that we fail to turn these savings into investment - any form of investment - is another day that the economy gets worse and our ability to satisfy our wants and needs declines.

TARP was not a stimulus package. We need a stimulus package now.