When treasury secretary Tim Geithner rolled out his long-awaited plan for buying up toxic mortgage loans and securities on March 23, reaction was split. Financial markets cheered, with the Dow Jones industrial average rocketing 497 points, or 6.8%, on the day. The chattering classes mostly grumbled, with Princeton economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman gloomily leading the way: "It fills me with a sense of despair," he wrote of the plan before it was released but after many details had leaked out.
One simple explanation for this divide is that the Geithner plan which...
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