Same Song, Second Verse Same As The First

Tim Geithner, the only man in the US who could solve the banking crisis despite being a tax cheat, announced his plan to solve the banking crisis today. He proposed that the toxic assets be purchased. How novel! Wasn't that the original plan back in September when Paulson convinced the Senate and House to pass the Toxic Assset Relief Program to the tune of $700,000,000,000?

Of course, Paulson and Geithner didn't actually spend that money the way they had promised to. But with more time to tinker with the details, Geithner has now come up with new flourishes and bigger expenditures. In fact, he admitted the costs would eventually come up to $1,000,000,000,000. (And remember that initial costs are always lower than reality when it comes to government programs.)

He expects a coalition of federal and private "investment" will take care of the toxic assets. But after Congress reneged on the AIG bonuses which they themselves wrote into the "Stimulus" bill, and after Geithner insisted on the bonuses, then claimed to know nothing about them, who would want to go into partnership with the government?