The Treasury faced the sheer impracticality of making markets for hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of dubious assets at a time of market terror. Either it overpaid and sacrificed the taxpayer interest, or it drove a hard bargain and risked ruining the banks it was trying to help. Meanwhile, the British had tipped the discussion in favor of recapitalization. Rather than buying bad assets or guaranteeing more borrowing by the banks, government should inject share capital. Having obtained the funds from Congress for asset purchases, TARP would now be repurposed as a vehicle for injecting
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