Kevin has a rundown of the Obama Bailout Plan, which can be summarized as:
- Creation of a
Bad Bank
financed from private investors to buy up the Big Shitpile from banks - Direct capital injections from TARP to financial institutions
- Expansion of the joint Treasury/Federal Reserve lending for student loans, car loans and credit card debt; up to $1 trillion
- $50 billion homeowner mortgage restructuring initiative
I’m not an economist, but this looks like a very sensible plan to me covering a wide latitude of financial instruments from the Big Shitpile (which financial gurus should lose their jobs over), to continued capital injections, to consumer spending, to home mortgages. While there is concern that we don’t go into moral-hazard territory with buying toxic assets at inflated prices and saving people’s McMansions, the fact that this is a multi-faceted plan strikes me as a positive development. The worst thing to do right now is to announce this or that plan will be a silver bullet, saving the economy. That is why listening to the President last night talk about health care as another leg of the recovery stool is very encouraging.