I think Krugman is an honorable guy even when I disagree with some things he has written in the heat of a political campaign. Aspirational hagiography is an addictive drug that the black middle class should avoid becoming addicted to.

Beautiful, Craig, beautiful.

I like Giordano and regularly read his blogsite. Refuting Obama's critics by arguing that there is no ÅIG conspiracy is wholly beside the point in my opinion. There is a shared consensus between senior government officials handling Obama's economic and financial policies and the folks who run and set policy for AIG. Again, they don't need to conspire about anything.

I think Krugman is an honorable guy even when I disagree with some things he has written in the heat of a political campaign. Aspirational hagiography is an addictive drug that the black middle class should avoid becoming addicted to.

Beautiful, Craig, beautiful.

Greenspan was a major player in this financial debacle, the markets loved him caused he covered their asses and allowed them to rape and plunder as financial predators.

I think Geithner has it right, cause the street is up in arms. He knows their bullshyt and he is calling it out..they hate the stress tests…but as former chair of the NY Fed Reserve, he has unbeatable knowledge of their solvency..they cannot BS him.

Nerd in the back corner crunching shyt up is fine with me when he is doing exactly what we need him to do.

Don't need no glitter …need someone knowledgable to stop these finance goons.

With all due respect I think that you, Al Giordano and the left-wing critics who support a conspiracy theory have all got it wrong!

None of the folks in the Obama Administration and on Wall Street who are the targets of ire have to conspire about anything because they are pretty much in agreement about everything from jump street. Why would folks who, for example, attend the same universities, travel and vacation, if not together, at least in the same resort areas, belong to the same clubs, send their children to the same schools etc. have to conspire about anything at all?

The world view of the economics department at Harvard University, for example, hasn't changed much since Summers was a graduate student there and was made the youngest tenured professor in the school's history. The people who hold the whip hand there now may not be the same people who were in charge when Summers was in the Littauer Building but their outlook hasn't changed much. The folks who are running the government during this crisis and, no, it doesn't matter whether they are Democrats or Republicans, share a certain set of assumptions and beliefs about what should be done. There is no need for them to ever conspire.

This financial rescue requires unpopular choices that will prove politically worth it if the crisis is solved. The PR plan would involve explaining the broad outlines so that Joe the TARP-funder could understand instead of making everyone wait and wait and wait while populist anger grew and grew and grew.

The public now sees AIG in the same light as Enron.

And while the administration had been pragmatic up to this point, it did not keep us informed, nor did it explain that this plan will give us a chance to recover our money, possibly at a profit.

The president did not tell us that Wall Street and the government need to work together for the benefit of Main Street. Instead he joined the chorus that pits Main Street against Wall Street.

I have been following this issue and this NYT story reveals nothing new.

If they had hit the ground running the administration would have had a PR strategy other than “I won” and “my public approval rating shows strong support for everything I do.' The plan was not explained to the public and Wall Street has been left anxious and fearful.

I am for the plan but it has been poorly handled thus far.

How will any TARP company attract employees who know they could become targets for Congress or for vigilantes at any moment?

The idea is that just like the RTC that bailed out the Savings and Loans, this plan would recoup taxpayer dollars and even turn a profit.

But this plan would require more TARP funds and the public seems less than anxious to pour more money down the drain. This plan could have been explained. The case could have been made for retaining employees. Bonus contracts could have been renegotiated in exchange for more TARP funds and the player would be in place with public support once the plan was ready to be released.

The administration failed to 'hit the ground running' and events have overtaken it.

Unfortunate, but it is the administration's doing.

So some yet unnamed 'staffer' worked with some yet unnamed 'Senate conference staffer' to insert a provision into the Dodd Amendement that would in effect, allow the AIG bonuses to go forward. Summers and Geithner were concerned about blocking the bonuses and wanted them protected, and voila!

But Geithner and Obama are 'shocked' and 'stunned'.

Of course there is no left wing conspiracy. Just a failure of the promised transparency and oversight he promised to provide. Obama wants to have it both ways on this issue.

He wants to fuel outrage and punish the greedy on Wall Street while at the same time attempting to entice private equity investors to buy up toxic assets from the troubled banks, value them and resell them, hopefully at a profit for the taxpayer.

But the fine line he is walking is narrowing as left wing activists plan to visit the homes of AIG employees and Congress passes retroactive taxes that will scare the financial sector away from his plan.

One program will use the bailout fund to create a public-private partnership to back purchases of bad assets by private investors.

A second portion of the plan will expand a recently launched program being run by the Federal Reserve called the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility. That program is providing loans for investors to buy assets backed by consumer debt in an effort to make it easier for consumers to get auto, student and credit card loans. Under Geithner's proposal, this program would be expanded to support investors' purchases of banks' toxic assets.

The third part of the Geithner plan would utilize the resources of the FDIC, the agency that guarantees bank deposits, to purchase toxic assets.