There is no “A, R or P” in the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, quipped U.S. Bancorp Chief Executive Richard Davis Tuesday morning in front of about 300 business people in Minneapolis.

“It’s just troubled,” the 50-year-old CEO said at the Thrivent Financial for Lutherans’ Business Leaders Forum. The forum invites executives to discuss how business and their principles intersect.

In his hour-long speech, Davis spoke about the economic crisis and the banking industry’s role in that crisis. But he kept the mood light, calling himself a “banker dude” and “Christian guy,” and at one point revealed that back in high school, he had been fired from his first job, at Toys “R” Us.

Davis also said banking remains a critical part of society, despite its current troubles.

“Bankers are dream makers,” he said. “We don’t make anything. We don’t build anything. We don’t fix anything. We don’t break anything. We get behind everyone who does.”

But Davis was critical of the U.S. Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program introduced last fall, saying that while the program was well intended, it has turned out to be “lousy.”

Created to encourage lending to small businesses and consumers, TARP started by shoveling tens of billions of dollars at the country’s biggest banks but soon was expanded to include banks of all sizes. Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp got $6.6 billion.

“I will say this very bluntly: We were told to take it. Not asked, told. ‘You will take it,’ ” Davis said. “It doesn’t matter if you were there on the first night and you were told to sign on the dotted line before you walked out of the office, or whether in the days that followed, you were told to take it.”

But by Tuesday afternoon, a U.S. Bancorp spokesman said Davis had misspoke, and meant that because the largest banks in the country took TARP money, U.S. Bancorp and others were forced to do so as well, for competitive reasons.

Davis went on to say in his talk that while government officials marketed the program as a way to entice banks to lend again, TARP actually was designed to give solid banks like U.S. Bancorp some extra cash to buy weaker banks in the system. U.S. Bancorp did just that late last year when it acquired the assets of two failed banks in California, Downey Savings and Loan and PFF Bank & Trust.

“We were told to take it so that we could help Darwin synthesize the weaker banks and acquire those and put them under different leadership,” he said. “We are not even allowed to mention that. … We were supposed to say the TARP money was used for lending.”

But Davis is talking about it now, he says, because he and others oppose current and future strings attached to the program. Davis didn’t detail those strings, but he said he and some peers intend to voice their opinions to Washington, D.C., soon.

“Now they’re punishing you for having the capital,” he said, adding that he refuses to stand by and let his company become “collateral damage” in an attempt to nationalize the banks.

Davis touted U.S. Bancorp as a strong player in a weak industry, but also gave props to local competitors Wells Fargo & Co., TCF Financial Corp. and Bremer Financial.

“That’s why this city will continue to come through this difficult time better than almost any major city in America,” said Davis, who came to Minnesota from California. “We didn’t get into the stupid stuff two years ago that would have impaired us from doing the normal stuff today. So there.”

Davis also disclosed that a number of other states and cities have been working hard to lure U.S. Bancorp away from the Twin Cities, but assured the crowd that so long as he remains in charge, the company will stay right where it is. The company employs more than 10,000 people in Minnesota.

Near the close of his speech, Davis suggested that what the panic-stricken world needs more than ever now is a little bit of courage and some faith that it will get through this dark period.

“Perhaps what we should do is check ourselves and say, ‘OK, it is tough.’ What can we — any two of us, any five of us, any 200 of us — do to improve the outcome of this difficult circumstance,” Davis said. “And by the way, where’s the faith? … Where’s the belief that something is going to turn here and we might actually have a chance?”

Davis offered up Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger as an example of that faith and courage. Sullenberger is the US Airways pilot who last month crash-landed his damaged plane into the Hudson River in New York, saving all of the plane’s passengers.

Sullenberger didn’t know for sure he’d be able to make that landing, “but he believed,” Davis said. “His faith helped him land that plane.”

Nicole Garrison-Sprenger can be reached at 651-228-5580.