The Brian Sullivan Blog
  • November 25, 2008 08:57 AM EST by Brian Sullivan

    TARP, PDCF, TALF: I Admit It, I'm Lost!

    I have completely lost track of the government bailout programs.

    Whew.  Okay, I said it and now I finally feel better.

    We in this odd industry called the media hate to admit that we don't know something.   Yet sometimes the most powerful thing for us to say is that we are confused as much as anyone else.   The key for us is to use this curiosity to have guests on the program who do know and understand.  That forces the first step in doing a good interview by asking the most basic, fundamental questions.  Those are the same questions you may have as well.  Bringing Main Street to Wall Street.

    So now that I've painfully admitted that I'm getting lost in the flurry of government programs and the daily new acronym (today its TALF, by the way, the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility) here's what I do know, or at least think I do.

    We awoke to new details of the ongoing government spending and rescue plans and the latest incarnation of the TARP.   In the details lie two different programs.

    One is the evolution of the existing TARP to go back to what it was originally designed for; the purchase of mortgage securities and debt issued by the GSE's (Fannie and Freddie).   The Fed said it will purchase up to $100 billion in GSE debt through a series of competitive auctions starting next week. It will also purchase up to $500 billion in mortgage-backed securities backed by GSEs, with the goal of starting that program by the end of the year.

    The other program is a second facility (though wrapped in the bodywork of the first) meant to buy the debt of consumer related products, such as auto and student loans.   As the smart folks at the Wall Street Journal wrote:The lending facility, which will be operated by the Federal Reserve, is expected to provide loans to investors who want to buy securities backed by credit cards, auto loans and student loans, the people said. Treasury will contribute between $25 billion to $100 billion to the facility from its $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program.

    Confused yet?

    Luckily there are a variety of people to help us out.   The great staff here at Fox Business who makes sure we have smart guests on who can explain what's going on.   The WSJ writers who report with clarity and, of course, all of you out there who watch and read Fox Business because you have helped provide us with terrifiic "real" insight and also questions.

    There is also the invaluable help of the Wall Street Community.   Despite all the recent negative press, most of those on "the Street" are generally very smart, kind and trustworthy individuals.   One of those is Josh Feinman, Chief Economist at Deutsche Bank Advisors, and thanks to him for help me make sense of the alphabet soup.  

    So that said, here's what I can discern so far about the programs announced in the past few months:

    Troubled Asset Relief Program [TARP] - The big daddy.  That $700 billion dollar program getting most of the attention.  Meant to buy mortgage backed securites and other debt backed by housing and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.   Half has been authorized, $350 billion is still to be doled out and spent.  

    Term Asset-Backed Lending Facility [TALF] - New today.   This program will allow the Federal Reserve to lend money backed by assets of things such as auto and students loans.  Meant to open up bank lending for consumer-related items and get people spending again.

    Asset-Backed Money Fund Lending Facility [AMLF] - Targeted directly at helping money market mutual funds stay liquid.  The Fed set up this plan to allow banks to buy weakened commercial paper (short-term company debt) and other products from money funds to make sure more funds don't "break the buck" and cause a run on the banks and money funds.

    Term Securities Lending Facility [TSLF] - Started in March.   This actually allows the Fed to swap bad mortgage and other debt on banks' books rather than merely lend using those assets as collateral.    A trade, not a loan.

    Special Lending Facilities [SLFs] - The Fed set up in March to loan money to JPMorgan to help buy Bear Stearns.  Also used to back AIG's balance sheet to avoid total collapse.

    Primary Dealer Credit Facility [PDCF] - Extends the Fed discount window borrowing facility to non-bank primary dealers.   Not used much.

    While that's a brief and obviously truncated list of the programs, hopefully it's a decent primer for the plethora of plans and programs announced by the American government in 2008.   There will be no quiz.

6ftrabbit

JITTER - Just In Time Temporary Economic Rescue.

November 25, 2008 at 9:49 am

m abbott

How about GAGG??? GET A GRIP GOVERNMENT

November 25, 2008 at 10:19 am

Kent Aabye

It's understandable that we are confused it is scary to realize they (the fed's) are even more confused and spending our money.

November 25, 2008 at 10:34 am

Travis Renfrow

How about a monetary total for all of these? Or at least today's estimate of what will almost certainly increase tomorrow.

November 25, 2008 at 11:28 am

Charlie Barker

Don't worry Brian, our government officials know less about than you do.

November 25, 2008 at 11:36 am

BlackHoleEconomics

There will be no quiz. heh. Possibly makes a case for a good Treasury guide for Dummies or something. Your no dummy there mr. Sullivan, but you did spell out well it's rather perplexing to gain an understanding of just what is going on.

November 25, 2008 at 11:38 am

BlackHoleEconomics

What we need are the dream police, and we need to find out what Paulson is saying when he's talking in his sleep. Paulson does resemble that guitarist from Foreigner I do so. While Fox had Foreigner on with Rove singing iirc, maybe they should get Paulson to come out and put this all into a rap or something. Ya need money ? ya gotta see Hank P, ok, I stop now ! I know one thing, when rules go out the door, often a meaningful game experience stops.

November 25, 2008 at 11:41 am

Patrick Norton

Think the government is confused; what about the banks? How many of those debts are verifiable? Last year a story came out that some Bank of America employees were selling identity's. Paying off a debt of the deceased or unknown victim of identity theft. These bankers and politicians with their villa's and bank accounts in foreign countries are confused? I think not!

November 25, 2008 at 11:46 am

Listening in Texas

With all the "Bailout" activity by Paulson; and his purchase of company, bank and other stocks... what percentage of current activity in these rallys are directly occuring as a result of the Fed purchasing stocks? What manipulations are taking place to artificially prop up the stock market with the government investing in all these companies and instead of purchasing their toxic paper as originally stated are "investing" and buying stocks? I would like to know what the actual figures are in Fed purchases and in what companies and how much; then I would like to see what those stocks have done as a direct result of government purchases of those stocks. If real investors are dumping their stocks and the government is purchasing them; then how much influence over the numbers is this causing? Or is this just showing as a "buyer" for stocks and showing any particular company now in sudden "demand" to raise their stocks and prevent further errosion of their investor base? I don't believe the stock market is really at the numbers it is without MAJOR manipulation by the government powers that be. Being that the case; where should it REALLY be? The great depression was made worse by government interference. How far does this rabbit hole go? The Fall of Rome was due to several factors; none of which was a loss by a military fight. They outsourced much of their industry the same as the US is doing now. Social programs literally bankrupted the economy, same as now... they devalued their currency.. same as now. Just read quickly on many other parallels on the demise of Rome and current US policies and activies.. it gets very scarry! Same path... different century. Has anyone worked up the REAL numbers of actual taxpayers in the US? There is a population of 300 million. 24% of this is under 18 or about 120 Million. 16% is over 65 so either retired or near retirement for another 48 Million. Of the taxpayers that are left; I read that close to 40% of those workers pay little to no taxes. This takes out another almost 53 Million taxpayers. This leaves around 79 million people who are paying taxes and will be left holding the bag on all these bailouts! Now the government wants to RAISE their taxes. In case anyone is interested; the Boston Tea party was over a tax of ONLY 2%; and it was taxation WITHOUT representation... 2% and they rebelled. We pay 30% plus and the government wants more. The original Pilgrams who first settled in this country at first attempted a form of Communism by every one worked and put all the goods into the "Common" store and everyone took out what they "need"... guess what.. it failed because people figured out they could get what they "wanted" and did not have to do anything! It failed; then a revision was quickly done that said everyone "kept" what they produced and could "sell" it. Thus Capitalism was born. Not all the Pilgrims were Separatists; a large percentage of them still worked for England. Many on the Mayflower died the first year; just about 50%. I am sure many of them really questioned why they came to this land. Thanksgiving was NOT invented by the Pilgrims as we are taught in school in 1607. There was ONE three day fall festival, and it was rummered that the indians did not even participate. Thanksgiving was put into place by our 16th President -- Lincoln, then the story of the indians began to come out. Yes, there is a lot of ranting here; but the point is the more free markets are manipulated by government; the more and faster they fail. Without fiscal responsibility; we are heading down a very dire path. We are bailing out companies who have "outsourced" their labor to other countries; we are becoming totally dependent on others and we are loosing our edge. Obama talks about "Change"; boy do we REALLY need to do something to get back on the right track; and all these bailouts are NOT it!!!

November 25, 2008 at 12:13 pm

ron

The only people benefitting from this fiasco is that federal reserve bank owned by you know who.What a bunch idiots running this country.

November 25, 2008 at 12:19 pm

Bappu

What about the ABCPMMMFLF? http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aAmfkLEyMPYM&refer=home

November 25, 2008 at 12:33 pm

Kathleen

Any one else think Paulson looks like Daddy Warbucks?

November 25, 2008 at 12:42 pm

Gerry in Florida

I cannot believe that there is not one person in a position of power in this country who is willing to stand up and put Paulson and his buddies out of business. Could it be because they are all feeding at the same trough? I feel like I'm on a train that has been hijacked by a madman who has locked himself in the locomotive and is driving full speed towards a cliff, bouncing off of every possible rut, boulder, and tree along the way. This has clearly become all about enriching the very people who created this mess at the expense of the honest taxpayers. Why would you ever try to fix a problem that was created by irresponsible lending to people who didn't have the ability to pay back the loan by freeing up money in those same institutions to be lent out to those same people? The only reason that I can see is simply to funnel some more money to the same banking executives that have already gotten rich by driving our economy and everyone’s savings into ruin. Maybe if we hadn’t outsourced so much of our income we wouldn’t have to support our economy with borrowed money. Let's get back to the business of paying people a decent living wage for inventing, making, and building things here. You cannot survive as a service jobs only economy. Eventually there are only the very few very rich and even though they will want a great deal of service that can only support so many of the working poor. Right now it's working out great for the powerful haves and not so great for everyone else.

November 25, 2008 at 7:18 pm

Gary

How about P.U.K.E. ? Permanently Underacheiving Knowledge Emergency - Which is the state of the Treasury Department. They have no idea what's going on with the economy and no idea how to deal with it.

November 25, 2008 at 10:04 pm

AMachado

Mr. Sullivan, Individuals with a basic understanding and expertise regarding business models should be in charge of taxpayer money, it's the amount that is the question. When the Treasury Department asked for the "bail-out" they went to Congress instead of the people. Why can't we have an option at Treasury Direct to invest in programs within the government? The recent election proved that there are plenty investors out there willing to invest in small increments, with high risk and little ROI. You'se people at FOX could have a link. These programs that are being developed need to have clear missions. They should also allow investors to purchase assests from these programs. Hopefully one day.

November 26, 2008 at 12:17 am

s.r.b.

Brian, You aren't alone here, I think they are trying to confuse us and get us lost, if we knew how the money was really being spent, we would probably revolt!

November 26, 2008 at 10:43 am

Stephan L. Rosenbaum, Esq.

How about GSTAB - Give Steve a Billion! 1. It might be simpler just to remove the capital gains tax for a couple of years. We might be amazed about what it might do! 2. A weekly prime time network broadcast by a recognized government official explaining to the American people, with charts, graphs and animation, just exactly what is being spent, where it is going and what it is doing, might go a long way to inspiring consumer confidence and a perception that we are moving in the right direction which in turn will spur the economy with perception of success instead of failure. Act, but communicate!

November 26, 2008 at 4:01 pm

dale

Thank you Mr. Sullivan for your "getting lost" article...I printed the paragraph with the abreviations and what they mean..Thanks to you I can follow more closley what's being said and read as we try to understand what is going on around us.

November 26, 2008 at 6:33 pm

dale

Thank you Mr. Sullivan for your "getting lost" article...I printed the paragraph with the abreviations and what they mean..Thanks to you I can follow more closley what's being said and read as we try to understand what is going on around us.

November 26, 2008 at 6:38 pm

monkeyfurball

I agree with Jim Rogers. Let them fail. You haven't seen inflation till you live in the USA over the next 5 years or so. It will be unbearable with the debasement the dollar will take thanks to the HUGE deficit. Folks, you could be paying $20 for a loaf of bread.

November 27, 2008 at 10:39 pm

Stimulus Acronyms | Citizen Economics

[...] is an explanation of each of them in plain [...]

February 16, 2009 at 10:43 pm

about this blog

  • Brian Sullivan joined FOX Business Network (FBN) in April 2008 as an anchor. He co-anchors the 10am-12pm ET hours of the FOX Business block. Prior to joining FBN, Sullivan served as an anchor for Bloomberg Television where he hosted the programs Morning Call and In Focus.

most popular posts