Wrap-up

This seems a fair summary of TRAP, or TARP, by Blodget

No USian plan under Bush would be complete without a provision ensuring the interpellation of infinite self-delusion:

VERY STRANGE AND POSSIBLY ALARMING: The SEC has the ability to suspend mark-to-market accounting for financial institutions when it thinks doing so is in the public interest. The SEC will also be launching a "study" of mark-to-market accounting. Mark-to-market has been fingered as one of the villains in this collapse. It isn't, but it sounds as though the SEC may have been persuaded that it is. Without mark-to-market, there's a lot more risk of a Japan-type scenario, where banks live in denial for years about how far up the creek they are.