This seems to be the undercurrent of the crowing from the Treasury and bailed-out banks themselves as we get regular accountings of who is paying back how much and at what profit.

Most recently, Robert Benmosche, CEO of American International Group,appeared on CNBC andbragged that Treasury would reap a profit of as much as $15 billionfrom the bank’s TARP repayments.

AIG recently gave back $6.9 billion and has made an offer of $15 billion to buy back the garbage bonds that Treasury took off its balance sheet during the insurer’s rescue in September 2008.

If what Benmosche says is true, then Treasury actually might be lowballing the figure it has provided regarding how much the TARP will make on the $411 billion it has disbursed so far.

“Treasury currently estimates that bank programs within TARP will ultimately provide a lifetime profit of nearly $20 billion to taxpayers,” Treasury said in a recent news release. But if taxpayers make $15 billion off AIG alone, the total figure could climb much higher.

True, the notion of a TARP “profit” requires some creative accounting.

As numerous critics have pointed out, much of the reason for the windfall comes from the removal of much of the toxic crap from bank balance sheets onto the already hideous balance sheets at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The National Taxpayers Union calls the profit “a myth, a fiction of Washington accounting…because the banks that got bailed out through TARP shuffled all their bad assets over to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which got their own separate bailout. So, really, it should be no surprise that they’re relatively healthy.”

This seems a small detail to the government’s financial minds as banks big and small pay back their TARP cash.

Of the big banks, TARP recently made a $12 billion profit on Citigroup that came on top of $13.5 billion from General Motors and $9.6 billion from Ally Financial and AIG's MetLife equity stake.

Some of the recent warrant purchases have come from First Horizon National ($79.7 million returned to taxpayers); 1st Source Corp ($3.75 million); Fifth Third Bancorp ($280 million); National Penn Bancshares ($150.6 million); Lakeland Bancorp ($20.1 million); Stockmens Financial ($12.4 million); Bridge Capital Holdings ($8.9 million) and Heritage Bankshares ($2.6 million).