Remind me to never, ever, hire Christine Romer to negotiate for me.*
From the International Herald Tribune:
U.S. Treasury hopes to lure private equity
White House economic advisers said Sunday that they believed private investors would respond with confidence to a plan that would try to coax them to form partnerships with the government to buy as much as $1 trillion in toxic assets from banks.The plan, being presented Monday by the Treasury Department, is likely to offer generous subsidies, in the form of low-interest loans, to facilitate the purchase of troubled mortgages and related assets from financial institutions....
...The private investors "are kind of doing us a favor," Ms. Romer said on the television talk show "Fox News Sunday.">>>MORE
From Fox:
..."We've got banks with a lot of toxic assets, what 'toxic' means is they are highly uncertain ... so that is certainly the big picture, and that is going to be the main reason for doing this ... We simply -- we simply need them. We need them -- you know, we've got a limited amount of money that the government has to go in here, so we need to partner, not just with private firms, but with the FDIC, with the Fed, to leverage the money that we have," she said....*There is the darker view that the Chairwoman did not just absentmindedly tip the private investors to the government's desperation but rather, is foreshadowing just how big the wealth transfers to these investors is going to be and is laying the groundwork for their defense.
In which case I would consider hiring her.
See also the post immediately below: "The Amazing TALF Bait And Switch"
