Sunday, March 22, 2009

Goolsbee Says Bank Plan Laid Out Tomorrow

On Face the Nation, Austan Goolsbee, part of Obama's economic team, said the banking plan's details will be revealed tomorrow.
MSNBC: Three components of plan
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the details have not been announced, said Geithner's plan will have three major parts:

--a public-private partnership to back private investors' purchases of bad assets. The $700 billion bailout fund would provide the backing. The government would match private investors dollar for dollar and share any profits equally.
--expanding a recent Fed program that provides loan for investors to buy securities backed by consumer debt. It's an effort to make it easier for people to get auto, student and credit card loans. The Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) program is getting up to $100 billion from the bailout fund; that money then is being leveraged to support up to $1 trillion in Fed loans. Under Geithner's plan for the toxic assets, part of that $1 trillion would now go to support purchases of banks' troubled assets.
--using the FDIC, which guarantees bank deposits, to purchase toxic assets. Officials said the agency would create special investment partnerships and then lend them money to buy up troubled assets.
The media is already reporting that the plan is being criticized. Paul Krugman criticized the plan and many on the left see that a reason to worry. The right would rather see the banks just crumble. The plan could be better supported by moderates. I'm not going to pretend to know which way is better, I'm still trying to get up to speed. But it does seem any reasonable plan could be made to work.