Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner unveiled the Obama program to shore up the country’s financial system today, but key details of the plan are yet to come. The lack of detail sent stocks lower, with the Dow Jones down three hundred points. The plan is a three pronged approach. From the Wall Street Journal:

The plan, which is designed to involve a mix of government and private capital, aims to stabilize the U.S. financial system by injecting capital into banks, helping to determine prices of toxic assets weighing on firms’ balance sheets and stemming foreclosures.

But the issue of how to best value these toxic assets seems to have caused real problems in getting to what all agree is necessary; a removal of those items from the balance sheets of banks and financial institutions. Further plan details from the Journal:

As part of the administration’s broad plan, the Federal Reserve Tuesday announced that it stands ready to dramatically expand a program to boost consumer lending so that it can also help jumpstart the mortgage market.

Treasury plans to put $100 billion toward the Fed’s Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, or TALF, as a way to leverage up to $1 trillion.

Additionally, Mr. Geithner announced plans for a public-private investment fund that would help make financing available to “help leverage private capital to help get private markets working again.” The program will be targeted to the legacy loans and assets that are now burdening financial firms, he said.

Geithner also talked about utilizing $50 billion to try to stem foreclosures, but left those details for later. From MSNBC:

In unveiling the governments’ new plan, Geithner was shortest on detail about proposed solutions to most fundamental cause of the financial meltdown — the relentless rise in foreclosures and fall in home prices. Following up on a proposal introduced in the House last month, Geithner said the new plan will include $50 billion to stop foreclosures. The details of how it will be spent, he said, would be announced “in the next few weeks.”

I have attached an executive summary of the Treasury proposal below. I am not sure they have it right, but I sure hope they do.

financial-fact-sheet