The Dow Jones Industrials soared nearly 500 points today (about 6%) on news of the Geithner plan to buy up toxic bank assets. The stocks of troubled banks did particularly well, Citibank up 17%, Bank of America 18%, JPMorgan Chase up 18%, and Wells Fargo up 17%.
As usual, if Wall Street is happy about a bailout plan, taxpayers should be worried.
From Krugman:
Read the rest of the column here.
In short, it won't work, it will enrich private investors at public expense, and it will close the door to other solutions that could work.