Well, Tim Geithner is going to release his Bailout plan today. According to the NY Times, it contains the following provisions:
1) Exisiting bank execs will be allowed to remain in power and will not experience salary caps.
2) Bank shareholders will be protected at taxpayer expense.
3) The government will not dictate what the banks do with the money they receive.
4) The creation of an entity which will guarantee mortgage backed assets for private investors, putting taxpayer money on the line (likely, the only way to encourage private investors to buy these things at a rate acceptable to the current holders of the securities would be to guarantee them at or near the holder's current valuation, regardless of what their true value is).
Yippee.
Firedoglake's Ian Welsh discusses the plan.
Update: Naked Capitalism.
Update II: Martin Wolf from the Financial Times.
4 comments:
The verdict from Wall Street is certainly in...and it ain't pretty.
Everyone thank their children and grandchildren future and present for this lovely gift that we won't see.
Paul Krugman thinks that the provision for private purchase of mortgage-related assets might not be all that pernicious:
"Private-public purchases of questionable assets; as I understand it, private investors would be the junior partners, so this is probably not a big giveaway (unless there’s huge public financing, in which case it amounts to ring-fencing after all). I also suspect it wouldn’t accomplish much, but no harm, no foul."
We're all going to hell in a bucket.
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