Treasury's Troubled Troubled Asset Program — ProPublica

Treasury's Troubled Troubled Asset Program

June 29, 2009, 9:04 a.m. EDT

It was supposed to be one of the central programs of the $700 billion bailout: The government would use up to $100 billion to help private investors buy up banks' troubled assets. But almost five months after Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner first announced the idea, it's still not off the ground.

There are a number of reasons, reports the Wall Street Journal. But the main one is simply that the big banks don't want to take losses if they don't have to, and their recent success in raising funds privately in the aftermath of the stress tests has taken the pressure off. There are a number of community and small regional banks with bad loans that would love to take part in the program, the Journal reports, but it was mainly designed for the largest banks; for instance, banks would have to offer a certain minimum of assets in order to participate. It's unclear when the program will finally get going.

Other links this morning:
How a Loophole Benefits General Electric in Bank Rescue (ProPublica, WaPo)
Paper Avalanche Buries Plan to Stem Foreclosures (NYT)
Fed Documents Fuel Concerns About Expanding Central Bank's Role (WSJ)
Treasury, GM Close to Reaching Deal on Legal Claims (WaPo)
Small Banks Not Shying From TARP (WSJ)

Follow ProPublica

Most Read

Latest Stories from ProPublica

What ProPublica Is Doing About Diversity in 2024

I Moved to Rural New Mexico to Report on the Aftermath of a Massive Wildfire. My Neighbors Were My Best Sources.

Chevron Will Pay Record Fines for Oil Spills in California

Idaho Legislature Approves $2 Billion for Schools to Repair and Replace Aging Buildings

Republish This Story for Free

Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

Thank you for your interest in republishing this story. You are are free to republish it so long as you do the following:

You have to credit ProPublica and any co-reporting partners. In the byline, we prefer “Author Name, Publication(s).” At the top of the text of your story, include a line that reads: “This story was originally published by ProPublica.” You must link the word “ProPublica” to the original URL of the story.
If you’re republishing online, you must link to the URL of this story on propublica.org, include all of the links from our story, including our newsletter sign up language and link, and use our PixelPing tag.
If you use canonical metadata, please use the ProPublica URL. For more information about canonical metadata, refer to this Google SEO link.
You can’t edit our material, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style. (For example, “yesterday” can be changed to “last week,” and “Portland, Ore.” to “Portland” or “here.”)
You cannot republish our photographs or illustrations without specific permission. Please contact [email protected].
It’s okay to put our stories on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories. You can’t state or imply that donations to your organization support ProPublica’s work.
You can’t sell our material separately or syndicate it. This includes publishing or syndicating our work on platforms or apps such as Apple News, Google News, etc.
You can’t republish our material wholesale, or automatically; you need to select stories to be republished individually. (To inquire about syndication or licensing opportunities, contact [email protected].)
You can’t use our work to populate a website designed to improve rankings on search engines or solely to gain revenue from network-based advertisements.
We do not generally permit translation of our stories into another language.
Any website our stories appear on must include a prominent and effective way to contact you.
If you share republished stories on social media, we’d appreciate being tagged in your posts. We have official accounts for ProPublica on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Copy and paste the following into your page to republish:

Current site Current page