No End In Sight

CalculatedRisk, the site that originally blogged the leaked bailout plan, reacts to the NYT's assertion that taxpayers may profit from the plan at some point.

The plan only limits the Treasury to "$700,000,000,000 outstanding at any one time", so the total purchases can exceed $700 billion. In fact, every time the Treasury sells some securities, they will probably plow the net proceeds back into more troubled assets until the entire $700 billion is gone.

Think of a drunk gambler at a slot machine. He starts with $100 and slowly loses. Every now and then he wins some money, but he keeps putting the coins back into the slot until he has lost everything. That is how this plan will work.

The referenced section of the plan, verbatim:

Sec. 6. Maximum Amount of Authorized Purchases.

The Secretary’s authority to purchase mortgage-related assets under this Act shall be limited to $700,000,000,000 outstanding at any one time