"Good" banks theirs, "bad" bank ours

Can you leave office soon enough Hank Paulson?

Paulson's idea for an aggregator bank - basically one bank that would combine all the bad debt and other illiquid assets - gained momentum January 16 in the financial community.

With $350 billion in TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) funds already spent, Paulson thinks its a good idea to shuffle all the troubled debt into one "bad" bank, thus leaving Americans with the bill.

Listen, I'm not happy about the economic situation and I don't particularly know what the answer is, but I do know when to call "shenanigans!"

I don't want to own the "bad" bank, while the tycoons make off with giant salaries, giant bonuses and all the "good" banks.

Late update: Now I see that Obama may adopt this plan. As I said, I don't like to see taxpayers holding all the bad debt. Let the big banks fail under their own weight, and capitalize and create new banks to do the actual lending ... that might be an option that actually gets the credit flowing again. It's like if were a loan shark and none of my debtors (or their families) are able to repay me, then I go bust. These banks played with toxic assets and it's sent the economy into spirals, ruining 401Ks and putting tons of people out of work. I don't see what good it does to save the bankers if they will be unwilling to loan to consumers.