How does the Geithner Plan work?

Sample Investment Under the Legacy Loans Program

Step 1: If a bank has a pool of residential mortgages with $100 face value that it is seeking to divest, the bank would approach the FDIC. Step 2: The FDIC would determine, according to the above process, that they would be willing to leverage the pool at a 6-to-1 debt-to-equity ratio. Step 3: The pool would then be auctioned by the FDIC, with several private sector bidders submitting bids. The highest bid from the private sector – in this example, $84 – would be the winner and would form a Public-Private Investment Fund to purchase the pool of mortgages. Step 4: Of this $84 purchase price, the FDIC would provide guarantees for $72 of financing, leaving $12 of equity. Step 5: The Treasury would then provide 50% of the equity funding required on a side-by-side basis with the investor. In this example, Treasury would invest approximately $6, with the private investor contributing $6. Step 6: The private investor would then manage the servicing of the asset pool and the timing …

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Geithner plan, re-explained by Khan Academy

Another video from the Khan Academy, talking about the working reality of the Geithner Plan. Really it seems that the plans sole purpose is to allow investors to use taxpayer money to buy assets with all upside and little or no downside by using a credit default swap to insure the deal. Even a zero return isn’t to be balked at when investing during a period of deflation, the way it’s described here puts it out in plain english.

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The Geithner plan

Yahoo! Tech-Ticker team interview James Galbraith about the new plan brought out by the US Treasury. Galbraith (son of the world renowned John Kenneth Galbraith) has been one of the vocal proponents of a Keynesian response to the crisis.

in this second video Tim Geithner talks about how the actual play should (hopefully) work and also what he believes are the expected lead times surrounding the deal. His body language in this video reminds me – to a degree – of Nixon before Watergate broke, looking down, avoiding too much eye contact etc.

The videos below are from one of my favourite vloggers, Khan Academy, who make simple to understand financial videos

the second installation is below

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