After almost a year of initiating the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), a lot has improved with respect to the economic crisis.

Though the economy is in far better shape now than a year ago, there are persistent problems which need to be addressed by the government before shifting the strategy to growth. We believe that the U.S. economy will regain the growth momentum once these issues are resolved.

On Thursday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said that the government won't provide additional funds to stabilize the financial markets and the government's economic team has removed a $750 billion line item from the federal budget projections, since it is unlikely to be necessary.

The TARP panel members, however, are not happy as most of the taxpayer-provided money was provided to financial institutions. But this is what was required as financial institutions are the backbone of the economy and they were the primary victims of the recession. However, we continue to see bank failures, with the tally reaching 89 so far this year.

Out of the $240 billion given to banks, $70 billion has come back as the healthiest banks have started repaying TARP funds. The Treasury Secretary estimates that the banks will repay another $50 billion over the next 12 to 18 months. Also, taxpayers have received decent returns on many of its financial-sector investments. TARP repayments have generated a 17% annualized return from stock-warrant repurchases and $12 billion in dividend payments from dozens of banks.

Many of the financial institutions that have already repaid bailout money include JPMorgan Chase (JPM), American Express (AXP), Goldman Sachs (GS), Morgan Stanley (MS), Capital One (COF), BB&T (BBT) and US Bancorp (USB).