A Persistent Question

If this Treasury secretary thing doesn't work out, Timothy Geithner probably should not go into sales. His pitch for a new bank bailout Tuesday was so short on detail that it inspired uncertainty, not confidence. If he was lowering expectations, mission accomplished. The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 381.99 points, or 4.6 percent to 7888.88 on the news.

But Wall Street's just-in-time analysis and its cable television apologists shouldn't be the gauge. This new plan, though in Cliffs Notes, focuses on the right problem: the need to forgive the nation's biggest banks for their foolhardy decisions. The toxic assets weighing down their balance sheets are hobbling lending and making these vitally important institutions impotent when their lending power is needed to help lead a recovery. This isn't about them. It's about the rest of us.

Geithner proposed an investment fund seeded with government money to lure up to $1 trillion of private money to buy these bad assets. Geithner claims the vexing problem of how to value the assets would be solved, because hedge funds and other buyers would determine prices. But how? He offered no answer.

The Geithner plan is more transparent than the Bush administration bailout last fall. Banks taking money would have to show how assistance would spur lending and issue monthly reports, available online, on lending activity.

But where's the stick? There is no penalty for hoarding money.

An intriguing element of the plan is a government-required "stress test" for banks. The government would require the largest banks to undergo an evaluation of their ability to sustain losses as conditions worsen. Banks then could seek additional capital from the government in exchange for stock.

But what if a major bank flunks the test? Will it be taken over by the government? Failed banks should be seized and recapitalized, then quickly returned to private hands. But it's not clear the Obama administration has the appetite for such bold action. As Geithner put it so bluntly in an interview with CNBC: "Governments are not good at running banks."

While this is undoubtedly true, it's also true that the banks haven't been so good at running banks. Banks allowed to remain zombies will just have to be infused with ever more government cash. There might come a time when government seizure is preferable.

The government should find a way to relieve banks of their troubled assets. Once unburdened, perhaps lending can return to normal. But the inconvenient question - the same one faced by former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson — remains: How does anyone figure out what these securities are worth?

It's not at all clear that Geithner has any better answer to this question.

REPRINTED FROM THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL.

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