A plan to save the banks

Treasury Secretary Geithner today announced a plan to get the toxic assets (mostly Collateralized Debt Obligations, or CDOs) off the balance sheets of the banks.  The biggest buyer of these assets will be the federal government, which could buy up to $1T (that's trillion) of the assets.  

As I said, these assets are CDO's or slices of individual mortgages.  Some may be worth well more than what the fed pays for them, while others could be worthless.  There is a chance that the government may actually make money off this deal, or it could lose.  Only time will tell.  However, this is not just a straight government buyout of these firms; there is an opportunity for large investors to get in on the action, buying these assets for pennies on the dollar.

Let's just hope the oversight is in place, or else there's the possibility to game the system.