Here’s why Paulson bailed on the TARP…

…or at least the original version of it, that is, buying up troubled assets.

As part of the Citigroup bailout announced this morning, we learned Citi’s got at least 306 billion in toxic assets on the books. That’s practically half the whole thing right there.

He bailed because he knew 700 billion wasn’t going to be enough to cover everybody else.