Some Details of the New Bank Rescue

The WSJ and the NYT both have front-page stories with preliminary details of the new bank rescue plan, which will be unveiled in the coming week. It's impossible to offer an informed opinion based on the extremely sketchy details in these articles (and I think the NYT article is getting the details of the FDIC plan wrong).

I will say this though: I'm very glad that one of the key aspects of the new plan is an expansion of the TALF program, which got off to a good start on Thursday. The key details of the TALF have been largely ironed out over the past month during extensive negotiations between the buy-side, the primary dealers, and the New York Fed. Market participants are comfortable with the framework, which means that the TALF can be expanded relatively quickly.