Jesus Christ!  Just how much more will we waste throwing at banks?  I mean it is somewhere in the multi-trillions now.  Just where is there an end to this?

Officials will begin so-called stress tests of about 20 of the nation’s largest banks tomorrow with the aim of ensuring they have sufficient capital to withstand the toughest of economic times. Institutions that cannot privately raise the added capital they need will get taxpayer money, regulators said yesterday.

“What we need to clean out the system is for investors to know that there are not more crises to come,” said Raghuram Rajan, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund who’s now a professor at the University of Chicago. “The stress tests, if they are followed by action, can help do that.”

The administration’s strategy is not without its risks. By shining a light on banks’ potential problems, it may end up fanning investor fears, rather than quelling them. It may also highlight how little firepower the government has left for fixing the banks’ problems after spending more than half of the $700 billion bank bailout fund authorized by Congress last year.

Policy makers are struggling with that issue as they try to decide how much more help they can provide Citigroup Inc. without diluting the value of shares held by investors too much, a person familiar with their deliberations said.

The initial reaction yesterday showed some relief that shareholders won’t be wiped out by full nationalization of some lenders. Citigroup gained 10 percent to $2.14 after losing more than 40 percent of its value last week. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Banks Index advanced 2.1 percent to 59.41 even as the broader S&P 500 Stock Index tumbled 3.5 percent.

The Treasury, Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and Office of Thrift Supervision vowed to preserve “the viability of systemically important financial institutions” and stated their “strong presumption” banks should remain in private hands and not be nationalized.

I have been bitching about the bailout of banks and Wall Street for months…please make them stop!  Main Street is crashing and burning and the best they can do is offer limited help to limited people….but banks….all help all the time…please MAKE them stop.