Call it a tax, a levy or a fee, but whatever you call it, the "Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee" that was announced by the Obama administration last week is big money.  The fee, projected to total $90 billion over the upcoming decade, will be assessed against the largest 50 financial institutions in the nation (following approval by Congress) and is limited to corporations holding more than $50 billion in assets.  60% of the $90 billion to be collected is expected to come from the nation's largest 10 financial services companies.  The Treasury Department, which spent 6 months weighing different options regarding the structure of the fee, conceptually views the levy as the cost of the insurance protection provided by TARP that was never paid for upfront (source: White House).   
     
The Financial Crisis Inquiry Committee, a 10-member group named last July, finally held its first public hearings last week.  The panel, charged with getting to the bottom of the 2008 financial meltdown, was told by the head of the FDIC that the Fed should be blamed.  Sheila Bair believes that "much of the crisis may have been prevented" if the Fed hadn't waited 7 years to get tough on subprime lending activity (source: AP).  

US corporations reporting their 4th quarter earnings results in the coming weeks would do well to match the performance of the Fed.  The nation's central bank made $45 billion last year, its best performance ever in its 96-year history (source: Federal Reserve).