After receiving billions in aid from U.S. taxpayers, the nation's largest banks say they can't track exactly how they're spending the money or they simply refuse to discuss it.

As regulators and shareholders sift through the rubble of the financial crisis, questions are being asked about what role lavish bonuses played in the debacle.

The Bush Administration's plan to use TARP funding to aid the auto industry and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s latest change of heart over seeking the remaining $350 billion generated more confusion and concern about the already controversial emergency spending program.

The financial bailout has a new address: It's Main Street, not Wall Street. Having thrown trillions of dollars at Wall Street and the financial sector, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson now appear ready to do the same for Main Street, with a spate of proposals to help homeowners and the housing market.

Hatched hastily about two months ago, the TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) was conceived to stabilize financial markets and restore investor confidence. But now it is looking so amorphous and vulnerable to political trade winds, it's become almost a constant source of uncertainty.

The Fed's plan to buy $600 billion in mortgage-backed securities made an immediate dent in mortgage rates, but it still raises questions about the overall US strategy in the financial crisis.

The central bank is using a number of unusual measures in its effort to add liquidity to the credit markets and interest rate policy isn't one of them.  

The Fed's plan to buy $600 billion in mortgage-backed securities made an immediate dent in mortgage rates, but it still raises questions about the overall US strategy in the financial crisis.

The inability of the lame-duck Congress and the Bush administration to agree on any action to boost the economy or ease the financial crisis is frustrating investors and depressing stock prices.

Treasury Secretary Heny Paulson tells CNBC that the deteriorating commercial paper market, among other things, prompted him to emphasize capital injections over his original plan for an auction to buy troubled securities.

Given the speed at which the federal government is throwing money around, the average taxpayer, never mind member of Congress, might not be faulted for losing track. CNBC, however, has been keeping a running tally. The balance sheet is now up to $7.36 trillion dollars.

If you are dumbfounded by the amount of money the federal government is pouring into the private sector to ease the nation's financial crisis, it's worth a look at how much Uncle Sam has spent on other major projects and historic events in the past, such as wars, bailouts and engineering marvels.

Former Fed Chairman Greenspan told Congress he is "shocked" at the breakdown in US credit markets and was "partially" wrong to resist regulation of some securities.

The US government is facing a bottomless pit of bailouts if it starts propping up failing companies outside the financial sector, including the struggling auto industry, economists say.

Merrill Lynch Chief Executive John Thain said the global economy is in a deep slowdown and the environment recalls 1929, but he's cautiously optimistic" about Wall Street's chances.

More than $200 billion has already been committed to a couple dozen companies, most of them banks, but so far insurer American International Group is by far the biggest beneficiary.

The Federal Reserve will buy $40 billion of shares in the insurer, as part of a restructured bailout package intended to prevent the firm from collapsing.

A committee of five little-known government officials, aided by a small staff of 40, is deciding which of the thousands of banks, savings and loans, insurers and other financial institutions qualify for capital injections under the government's bailout plan.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is demanding information about executive compensation and bonuses at nine banks that have received federal funds under TARP, the U.S. Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program.

With the financial crisis costing investors and taxpayers alike tens of billions of dollars, legislators are in no mood to suffer fat payouts for executives at financial firms taking part in the government bailout.

The US government mishandled the credit crisis, much as it did Hurricane Katrina three years ago, say crisis management experts.

Investors and taxpayers angry about the government bailout of seemingly mismanaged financial firms can probably count on criminal indictments in the coming months, experts say.

In nearly a century, no Treasury secretary has faced a more difficult financial crisis than the one Henry Paulson is contending with. For months, he and his team have been working around the clock, often seven days a week, trying — in vain — to keep it from deepening, according to the New York Times.