The Soon-to-be ‘Asinine’ Public-Private Partnership

I have watched the recent fits and starts surrounding the TALF and can’t say I am at all surprised. I was only mildly amused at how the Treasury Department actually thought it would be able to swim among the Wall Street sharks without getting bitten. How quaint!

Next up in the Garden of the Treasury Blossoms is the public-private partnership, which will no doubt soon be called the “let’s pretend we’re not giving investors a ridiculously sweet deal and letting banks off the hook for their lending errors” program. What an acronym that one will be!

There is price no discovery in this public-private partnership. It’s smoke and mirrors to bail banks out. The program hasn’t come online yet — full program specifications are expected later this week — but already word is starting to trickle out. Naked Capitalism has some details. The blog described the “partnership” as follows:

This is billions to avoid price discovery, which is what it needed to assess the magnitude of the problem, attract private capital, and do triage on sick financial firms. This is simply a Japan solution with a lot of moving parts to disguise the essence of the undertaking.

More will leak out in the coming days. Get ready to feel nauseous.