The Obama administration program to address the fragility of the banking system is based on a two major initiatives. First, it has proposed the Geithner- Summers Plan to buy subprime securitized assets from the banks. The toxic assets plan deals with less that 40 percent of the balance sheet of the banks that is in marketable securities. It does not deal with the 60 percent of the balance sheets of US banks that are loans and are not marked to market. Further, it will take six months to get the program in motion. The plan elicited deserved criticism from reputable analysts, including Paul Krugman in his NYT column. As Krugman points out in his column this plan is the third variant of an old plan to lift the value of toxic assets. The plan meets Einstein's definition of madness: continuing to do the same thing, hoping for a different outcome. Jeff Sachs (FT, March 23), Joseph Stiglitz (NYT, April 1) and Peyton Young (FT, April 1) added their concerns that the plan nationalizes losses and privatizes profits.
歐巴馬(Obama)政府治理銀行體系脆弱性的計劃是以兩項重要舉措爲基礎的。首先，它提出了從銀行收購次貸證券化資產的「蓋特納-薩默斯計劃」(Geithner- Summers Plan)。這項不良資產計劃所涉及的是佔銀行資產負債表的不到40%的有價證券；它並不涉及佔美國銀行資產負債表60%的不按市值計價的貸款。此外，它需要6個月的時間纔可啓動。該計劃理所當然的招來了保羅•克魯格曼(Paul Krugman)等知名分析人士的批評。正如克魯格曼在其《紐約時報》(NYT)專欄文章中所指出的，該計劃是一項提升不良資產價值的舊有計劃的第三種變體。該計劃符合愛因斯坦(Einstein)對「瘋狂」的定義：持續做同樣的事情，並期望出現不同的結果。對這項把損失國有化、把利潤私有化的計劃，傑夫•薩克斯(Jeff Sachs)（見英國《金融時報》3月23日文章）、約瑟夫•斯蒂格利茨(Joseph Stiglitz)（見《紐約時報》4月1日文章）和佩頓•楊(Peyton Young)（見英國《金融時報》4月1日文章）也表示了關切。