BLANK CHECK….There seems to be a growing consensus on the left that if the American taxpayers are going to give Henry Paulson a blank check to bail out a bunch of investment banks, then the American taxpayers ought to get a piece of the action in return. For example, here’s Robert Reich:
The government (i.e. taxpayers) [should get] an equity stake in every Wall Street financial company proportional to the amount of bad debt that company shoves onto the public. So when and if Wall Street shares rise, taxpayers are rewarded for accepting so much risk.
Maybe this makes sense. But I wonder: do we really want equity stakes in all these firms? I don’t. I’d rather have senior debt. Besides, I’m not sure I especially want the federal government to own half of Wall Street anyway.
So here’s another idea. Instead of an equity stake, we offer ailing banks the following deal: the taxpayers will buy your toxic waste for 20 cents on the dollar. (Or 10 cents or 30 cents. Whatever.) We’ll hold it for a maximum of 24 months, at which point you can buy it back from us at, say, a 10% premium, and then sell it off yourselves. If you choose not to buy it back, Uncle Sam will sell it off. If we sell it at a profit, we’ll keep the upside. If we sell it at a loss, you guys will make up the difference. The payback terms will be, oh, let’s say three points above LIBOR over five years.
And what control do the banks have over how much we sell this stuff for? None. They have to trust us to get the best possible price. To coin a term, they have to give us a blank check. Seems like a fair exchange.
