Congress: What Bernake And Paulson Aren't Telling You

Congress: Think.

Ben and Hank have both told you that the critical issue for the economy is for "lending to resume", stating that it has dramatically contracted.

If this was the truth, then Ben and Hank would have come to you for $700 billion in the TARP, but instead of TARPing the money, they would have asked for permission to use it to capitalize 10 new banks which would be immediately IPO'd off to the public with the stake being in the form of some kind of super-senior debt that held a coupon high enough to encourage immediate (or nearly-so) replacement with private capital.

This would have resulted in an aggregate of seven trillion worth of new lending capacity in the economy, an amount that, incidentally, would allow the full replacement of Fannie and Freddie as holders of housing debt with about $2 trillion left over for credit cards, auto and business loans.

That would have immediately solved the "credit freeze" problem.

So why wasn't this proposed?

This is the reason:

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