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I’ve stumbled across a couple of seemingly conflicting stories this afternoon that have left me asking myself, “Does Washington never want TARP to be fully repaid?”

Sounds crazy, right? While we know taxpayers want the money to be paid back, we thought Washington’s TARP tax — known as the “financial crisis responsibility fee” — was an assurance that the country wouldn’t lose a dime on the money that was pledged to the banks, both large and small.

But it seems that may no longer be the case. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner indicated today that if all the TARP money isn’t repaid within 10 years, that the Treasury could extend the tax to ensure it would be:

Sometimes there are so many good topics out there to write about that we just don’t have time to cover them all in depth. In the same vein as our weekly recap, I wanted to touch on several interesting topics that have been both relevant and interesting this week.

J.P. Morgan Earns More than Expected in Fourth Quarter of ‘09: Hey, at least they’ll have money to pay the new “financial crisis responsibility fee.” J.P. Chief Executive Jamie Dimon’s not-so-optimistic comments note some of their struggles that lay ahead: