WASHINGTON(MarketWatch) - The American public should be allowed to buy shares in a Treasury Department public-private program set up to buy as much as $1 trillion in so-called toxic assets from the financial sector, according to a key lawmaker Friday. http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/kanjorski-permit-public-buy-1/story.aspx?guid={459E6EEB-30B7-469D-9DC2-4375F1ADD8C6}&dist=msr_1
link fails. I believe that average Americans of modest means should also be allowed to buy shares or have some means of buying into the program," House securities subcommittee Chairman Paul Kanjorski, D-Penn., said in a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. "By making this adjustment, you would be addressing concerns that this latest Administration program too much resembles a rigged game for a select few insiders." At issue is an Obama Administration program announced March 23 that seeks to remove toxic mortgage securities from financial institutions. The plan would have private investors and the Treasury put in equal amounts of money that would then be backed by a loan guarantee from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to buy loans and mortgage-backed securities from the banks.
The accounting change rules will give banks every incentive to bloat the values of assets and sell the most toxic and worthless assets to the program at bloated values. There's your risk...
The most worthless banks you can imagine are the beneficiary of this. So just buy bank shares. It isn't that complicated.
Huh, sorry I just don't get this... The public has bought into this already, hook, line and sinker. It's the taxpayers' money that will be buying this stuff.