Geithner Announces Revised Bailout PlanTreasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner this morning announced an aggressive and multi-faceted program that could commit $1.5 trillion or more in public and private funds to rescue banks and financial institutions and thaw frozen credit markets.
The gravity of the financial crisis confronting the Obama administration was brought into stark focus as Geithner unveiled a financial stability plan that would more closely scrutinize the risks banks are facing and offer public and private capital to those that need it; create a fund, with a starting value of $500 billion, to buy up toxic real estate loans; and commit up to $1 trillion to reopen lending markets for consumer, student, small business, auto and commercial loans.
Geithner did not ask Congress for more funds than the roughly $350 billion that remain in the Treasury Department's original rescue package for the financial system. He said the balance of the money for the stability plan would, for now, come from other government agencies, such as the Federal Reserve, as well as private-sector contributions.
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