Bailouts

Geithner's Privatized Rescue Plan

Wants companies to buy up lousy assets.

Though Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is putting off plans to unveil his new proposal to bail out struggling financial institutions until the administration's stimulus plan passes, new details are hitting the papers quickly. The Treasury Department is moving towards creating a "bad bank" to buy up toxic assets that have infected the finance industry, but in a twist, the Wall Street Journal reports that the government will seek to finance the new institution mostly with private investors' money. However, in order to entice hedge funds and private equity firms to buy up the unsound securities, the government would provide some kind of sweetener to the deal, possibly guaranteeing a floor value to the assets.