Troubled Asset Relief Program

A speech titled Many Challenges Lie Ahead by Neel Kashkari, Interim Assistant Secretary for Financial Stability, delivered to the Brookings Institution, Washington DC, Jan 8, 2009, is presented. America is in an unprecedented period and market events are moving rapidly and unpredictably. The Treasury has responded quickly to adapt to events on the ground. A program as large and complex as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) would normally take many months or years to establish. But, the Treasury did not have the luxury of first building the operation, then designing the programs and then executing them. Neel Kashkari briefs about five areas, including: 1. execution of the programs Treasury has implemented under the TARP, 2. the progress made in building the Office of Financial Stability, 3. the efforts to meet the highest standards for compliance and oversight, 4. review of the thorough reporting requirements, and 5. some of the measurements looked at to judge if the programs are working.