Treasury and Fed Looking at Other Options

Posted by Kendall Harmon

Robert A. Dye, chief economist at PNC Financial in Pittsburgh, said those efforts amounted to patchwork solutions and had thus far failed to bolster confidence in credit markets.

“The problem is that these are just a series of ad hoc solutions on a business-by-business basis, and they aren’t addressing the systemic problems in any basic way,” Mr. Dye said.

But other analysts said that credit markets around the world were almost entirely dysfunctional on Monday morning, when political leaders and investors alike assumed that Congress had reached a firm deal and would easily approve the bailout.

“It’s our view that this package, in a fundamental sense, will not solve the problem,” said Simon Johnson, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. Mr. Johnson said that he had been hoping that the bailout plan would simply stabilize the markets through the presidential elections in November, but that he was now pessimistic about even that.

Michael Darda, chief economist at MKM Partners, an investment firm in Greenwich, Conn., said the Treasury’s bailout plan might have even unnerved many investors.

“I don’t see how it can help banks unless it’s clear that the government is going to buy these assets for substantially more than they are worth right now,” Mr. Darda said. “It’s such a big step in terms of government influencing the private sector, and it’s hard for investors to take a leap like that overnight, especially when they don’t know what’s going on.”

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • Politics in General

5 Comments
Posted September 30, 2008 at 1:47 pm [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]



1. Clueless wrote:

http://www.boom2bust.com/2008/09/29/the-picture-that’s-worth-a-thousand-words/

Mmm.  I’m gonna have to do penance for posting this, but a picture really is worth a thousand words.

September 30, 3:37 pm | [comment link]
2. Charles wrote:

Oh my, Clueless.  I had to contain myself from laughing freakishly at the office.

September 30, 3:56 pm | [comment link]
3. Jeffersonian wrote:

So they’re going to try and come in through the window instead of the back door?  Still going for the silver, tho’.

September 30, 7:21 pm | [comment link]
4. Marion R. wrote:

Treasury and Fed Looking at Other Options

September 30, 7:35 pm | [comment link]
5. Marion R. wrote:

Treasury and Fed Looking at Other Options

Get it?

September 30, 7:37 pm | [comment link]
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