The TARP, initially positioned as a pool of money to purchase toxic mortgage assets from banks, was ultimately used to inject capital directly into financial institutions in return for preferred equity stakes.

FORBES: CBO Updates TARP Tally: $24B Cost To Taxpayers ($14B From AIG)

Nor have investors grown any more confident about their ability to price the banks' toxic mortgage-backed assets: Merrill Lynch's cut-price sale of collateralised-debt obligations in July has had few imitators.

ECONOMIST: American banks

Indeed, the Fed has spent those years buying up residential-mortgage backed securities in their attempt to take toxic assets out of the market and push down mortgage rates.

FORBES: Home Prices Growing As Fast As Before The Housing Collapse: Case-Shiller

Most disappointment was directed at the sketchy plan to tackle banks' toxic assets, such as mortgage-backed securities and leveraged loans.

ECONOMIST: America's bank bail-out

The uncertainty surrounding the true value of mortgage securities, derivatives and other toxic assets is stoking panic in the financial markets.

FORBES: After Bear

Faced with another hefty quarterly loss, it is shopping both its worst assets (a toxic commercial-mortgage portfolio) and its best (Neuberger Berman, a fund manager).

ECONOMIST: American finance

Faced with another big quarterly loss, it is hawking around both its worst assets (a toxic commercial-mortgage portfolio) and its best (Neuberger Berman, a fund manager).

ECONOMIST: American finance

The bank continues to wind down Citi Holdings, the entity created after the mortgage collapse where the bank has isolated its toxic assets.

FORBES: Citigroup Beats Street Estimates But Profit Falls 32%

And he did it by brilliantly executing thousands of complicated trades in the very assets that were tarred as toxic in the 2008 financial crisis: subprime mortgage-backed securities.

FORBES: Sublime Subprime