Randy Quaid And The Obama Bank Bailout

From today's WaPo:

The basic problem confronting the government is that banks hold large quantities of assets that they value on their books for much more than investors are willing to pay. Banks cannot sell these assets without recording massive losses. But holding the assets is tying up vast amounts of money, choking the financial system.

Since the early days of the financial crisis, officials have struggled to unwind that knot. If the government buys the assets at prices that banks consider fair, the Treasury would take a huge loss when it ultimately sells the assets for much less. If, instead, the government insists on paying market prices, the banks may not survive their losses.

Instead of taking a single approach, the Obama administration plans to divide assets and other loans into three categories, each with its own solution, according to sources familiar with the discussions, speaking on condition of anonymity because the details are not finalized.

The government would buy and hold on to those assets whose falling prices are putting banks under the most pressure. Officials want to limit these purchases because of the vast expense.

The centerpiece of the plan would be a guarantee to limit losses on a second group of troubled assets that can be kept by the banks because they have more stable prices.

And it would allow banks to retain and profit from their healthiest assets.

Beyond these initiatives, the government also is likely to inject more capital into troubled institutions.

Yes. That's the entire plan:

1) Put the taxpayer on the hook for trillions in disintegrating, flaming crap,

2) limit losses on trillions of crap that will disintegrate down the road (leading to said taxpayer being on said hook for said crap),

3) let the banks keep actual assets, and

4) throw more money at the banks.

You remember Randy Quaid's character in Major League? The guy in the outfield screaming "Vile Thing! You walk everything!!" at Charlie Sheen?

Yeah, it's like that. We're screwed. Completely. This is going to fail so badly, Obama will have no choice but to nationalize the country's banks.