CNN iReport

The Geithner plan was cheered by Wall Street and hedge fund managers around the world.  If you have the capital of a typical hedge fund, the government will give you 90-95% of the money you need to purchase toxic assets.  The government hopes that by clearing these toxic assets from bank balance sheets, banks will start lending more.  Where does the 90-95% stimulus check for wealthy investors come from?  Of course, the answer is once again the American taxpayers.  Joseph Stiglitz called the plan "very badly flawed" because it offers "perverse incentives" to wealthy investors.  Stiglitz went on to say, "Quite frankly, this amounts to robbery of the American people.  I don't think that it is going to work because I think that there is a lot of anger about putting the losses so much on the shoulder of the American taxpayer." (Joseph Stiglitz, "Geithner Plan will Rob US Taxpayer: Stiglitz" Reuters, March 24, 2009).  Even if toxic debt is cleared, banks are not required to lend with this plan.  This is just one more trickle-down economic plan crafted by Geithner and other banking insiders to make the banking community and hedge funds richer at the expense of the poor and middle class.