Obama, Geithner reveal bank rescue plan

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner unveiled the Obama administration's plan to fix the banking crisis estimating it could cost up to $1 trillion in public and private funds.

Geithner's plan depends much on private investors, including hedge funds and private-equity firms, to purchase $500 billion to $1 trillion of toxic assets with government incentives such as low interest loans and risk-profit sharing.
"The point of the program is to save the taxpayers money by attracting private capital," a senior administration official said.
About $350 billion still remains from the old financial bailout money passed during the Bush administration.

The Public-Private Investment Program will use between $75 billion-$100 billion of Treasury funds to leverage $500 billion and potentially expand to $1 trillion of private assets aided with financing from the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Some analysts though believe it will take much more money just to stabilize the banking system. Nouriel Roubini, for example, thinks it will take $3.5 trillion more to deleverage and unfreeze the credit markets.