A Better Bank Fix: Cut Every Mortgage’s Principal

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has unveiled a new plan to combat the financial crisis: convincing private financial institutions to buy up “toxic assets” with the government’s backing. While this is a step up from former Secretary Henry Paulson’s original bailout plan—in which the government itself would buy up the bad securities—it is still not the right approach. Instead, there is a better, cheaper, less risky, more direct way to improve banks’ balance sheets and restore confidence

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How Maine’s GOP Senators Are Key to Obama’s Agenda

The courtship of Senator Olympia Snowe started in December with a phone call from Joe Biden. The Vice President-elect made sure Snowe had his home telephone number in Delaware so she would know how to reach him on weekends. In the weeks that followed, the two traded memos back and forth about how an economic stimulus package should work.

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