THE RARE SUCCESS THAT IS AN ORPHAN:

Boffo GM IPO Highlights Secret of TARP's Success (Joseph Schuman, 11/19/10, AOL News)

The success of General Motors' return to the stock market caps the revival of a one-time bastion of American industry all but left for dead by investors just two years ago.

But it is also the latest achievement to mark the quiet triumph of the multibillion-dollar government financial programs begun in the Bush administration, and continued by President Barack Obama, that economists credit with staving off a depression even though many Americans hate them. [...]

The TARP officially closed for business at the beginning of October. By then, nearly all the banks it helped save paid back their loans with interest. Two other wards, GM and Chrysler, had emerged from bankruptcy, and a third -- AIG -- was on its way to repaying the billions spent to keep the much-villainized insurance giant from imploding and wreaking world-wide financial havoc.