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（美国公共假日），时任美国财长的汉克•保尔森(Hank Paulson)召集银行老板们开会，向他们提出了一个不可能被拒绝的提议：用1250亿美元纳税人资金交换9家美国银行的股权。花旗集团(Citigroup)和摩根大通(JP Morgan)等银行，各自接受了高达250亿美元的资金。财政部还为银行新发行的债务提供担保。这此纾困对银行股东及债券持有人有着极大的价值，因此，奥巴马(Obama)政府计划通过征收某种税项来收回资金，就不足为奇了。