Geithner Says Bad Asset Buy-Up Program Nearly Complete

""Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner"":http://www.treasury.gov/organization/bios/geithner-e.shtml said this week that the administration is close to finalizing its plan for alleviating the burden of toxic mortgage assets, which many argue was the cause of the nation's financial tailspin. Geithner said on Tuesday that details of the program will be released within the next couple of weeks.
Geithner put forth the idea for the program when he announced the administration's overhaul of the $700 billion federal rescue plan on February 10th. This component of recovery is centered around a public-private partnership to deal with banks' toxic assets. The government plans to provide funding to private investors who are willing to buy up the bad mortgages and other distressed assets that are weighing on banks' books.
The administration hopes that by relieving banks of these revenue depleting loans, it will help thaw the credit freeze that is keeping lending dollars out of the hands of consumers and businesses.
In an interview on PBS' _""The Charlie Rose Show"":http://www.charlierose.com_, Geithner said, ""We think we can make a meaningful difference in starting to open up these markets. There's capital that wants to come into the system, but just can't get financing.""
Geithner explained that the loans from the government will carry interest rates low enough to support expanded lending but would not be so favorable that the investors partaking would want to keep borrowing from the government once the economy starts to improve.
Geithner said he expects to see tangible results from the plan, but cautioned that it will take time to resolve the crisis. ""It's going to take a lot to work through this,"" Geithner said in the television interview. We started with a deep mess, he said, but ""We are going to keep at it until we fix it.""
""We're going to move in the next couple weeks to lay out the precise terms of this facility,"" Geithner continued. ""People will see how it's going to operate. And then it will go into place over the following weeks and months.""