Warren Drops A Bomb on Geithner

While she speaks in a mild-mannered tone, make no mistake: Elizabeth Warren TKOs Tim Geithner. In a measured tone, she lays out the three approaches to dealing with financial crises:

1. Liquidation, i.e. Chapter 11
2. Receivership. FDIC seizes the insolvent banks, separates the good and bad assets, recapitalizes the banks/gets bondholders to perform debt-for-equity swaps, and sell back the good bank to private investors
3. Subsidies. These can either be direct, in the form of capital infusions, or indirect, such as buying toxic assets at inflated prices.

Then Warren examines Treasury's policy of subsidization to date, before concluding

Treasury's overall approach seems based on the premise that the banking problem is temporary - and look, we all hope that's the case. If it is, more aggressive steps may never be needed. It is possible, however, that Treasury's approach fails to acknowledge the depth of the current crisis. The economy may not come roaring back. And the big profits that propped up the banks during the housing boom may not return. For some, that means it is necessary to consider alternate approaches.

Translation: this is not a liquidity crisis, and we're going to have to put insolvent banks into receivership. Hopefully Congress is paying attention.