The Obama administration on Monday will unveil a program to help banks clean up their books by purchasing their bad assets.
The effort marks the next big step in Washington's six-month-old bank rescue, which has so far mostly entailed making capital investments in exchange for stock shares and insuring bank obligations.
Getting private sector involved
So-called public-private partnerships could accomplish two critical goals: luring private capital into the process of rescuing troubled institutions, and using market forces to set prices for hard-to-value assets.
But some critics say public-private partnerships won't do the trick -- that the administration must take more aggressive action such as seizing control of banks.
Another criticism of public-private partnerships: The government loans would pose too much risk to taxpayers.
