When $700 Billion is Just Not Enough
Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, is trying to save the financial system. But the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program or TARP cannot fund all of the financial institutions that have applied for it.
Regulators for the Treasury have announced that the agency expects at least 1,800 publicly-held financial institutions to line up for their piece of the $700 billion bailout designed to rid banks of toxic assets.
Paulson moved quickly to shore up the financial services sector in the midst of a meltdown. And, to date, Treasury plans to divide $33 billion among the nine largest US banks and 16 regional banks. But the Treasury Secretary may have opened up a Pandora’s box since, now, almost any financial institution can apply for a piece of the pie.