The real import of the administration's plan for repairing the banking industry's bad assets is captured in this quote from Timothy Geithner's plan, described today in the Wall Street Journal.
This requires those in the private sector to remember that government assistance is a privilege, not a right. When financial institutions come to us for direct financial assistance, our government has a responsibility to ensure these funds are deployed to expand the flow of credit to the economy, not to enrich executives or shareholders.
In other words, the objectives of the plan is not to return the private sector to profitability -- what, afterall, is profitability if not the enrichment of executives or shareholders. The success of Geithner's program is designed for the private sector to set the prices, but the taxpayer to share in the upside. The other problem with this is that the taxpayer will NOT share in the upside. Taxpayer, in Geithner speak means the government coffers.
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