On October 13 2008 – a public holiday in the US – the Treasury Secretary of the day, Henry “Hank” Paulson, summoned bank bosses to a meeting and made them an offer they couldn't refuse: $125bn of taxpayers' money in exchange for equity in nine US banks. Some banks, such as Citigroup and JP Morgan, received as much as $25bn each. The Treasury also guaranteed new issues of bank debt. It was a bail-out of enormous value to bank shareholders and bondholders, so it can hardly be a surprise that the Obama administration is planning to try to get the money back with some kind of levy.
2008年10月13日（美國公共假日），時任美國財長的漢克?保爾森(Hank Paulson)召集銀行老板們開會，向他們提出了一個不可能被拒絕的提議：用1250億美元納稅人資金交換9家美國銀行的股權。花旗集團(Citigroup)和摩根大通(JP Morgan)等銀行，各自接受了高達250億美元的資金。財政部還為銀行新發行的債務提供擔保。這此紓困對銀行股東及債券持有人有著極大的價值，因此，奧巴馬(Obama)政府計劃通過征收某種稅項來收回資金，就不足為奇了。