U.S. - with firms - to buy 'bad' assets

"Public Private Investment Program"? Public and private are opposites and cannot be linked together. I am reading George Orwell's classic "1984". This is right out of the book. Newspeak is what Orwell called government phrases designed to make people believe the opposite of reality. I suggest giving the book a read, Orwell was off by 25 years. Scary stuff. The stock market seems to like the news that the Treasury is doing something to unfreeze the banking system. Dow futures are up almost 200 points. -Lou

U.S. - with firms - to buy 'bad' assets

WASHINGTON (CNNMoney.com) -- The Obama administration on Monday will formally unveil a program to help banks clean up their books by subsidizing private investors' purchase of troubled assets.
The effort marks the next big step in Washington's six-month-old bank rescue, which has so far mostly entailed making capital investments and backstopping bank debt.

Administration officials, in a briefing with reporters late Sunday night, said they plan to commit $75 billion to $100 billion to start wiping out bad assets and would evaluate how programs are working before deciding how to commit more money.

The goal is to buy up at least $500 billion of bad assets -- loans, such as those for subprime mortgages, that are now in danger of default.
Investors have been waiting expectantly for details since last month when Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner announced the framework of a plan to address two of the biggest problems in the banking sector: the toxic assets keeping banks from lending and the shortage of capital at major institutions.

Under the new Public Private Investment Program, taxpayer funds will be used to seed partnerships with private firms to buy up assets backed by mortgages and other loans.

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http://money.cnn.com/2009/03/21/news/economy/bank_bailout_next_step/index.htm?postversion=2009032209