Paulson y Bernanke piensan crear una agencia permanente inyectora de liquidez
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Officials Weighing Plan to Ease Crisis, Schumer Says (Update1)
By Alison Vekshin
Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve officials are considering a ``permanent'' plan to address the financial crisis, said Senator Charles Schumer, who proposed a new agency to pump capital into troubled financial companies.
``The Federal Reserve and the Treasury are realizing that we need a more comprehensive solution,'' Schumer, a Democrat who chairs the congressional Joint Economic Committee, told reporters in Washington today. ``I've been talking to them about it.''
Schumer proposed an agency to inject funds into financial companies in exchange for equity stakes and pledges to rewrite mortgages to make them more affordable. His remarks indicate momentum is building for some wider plan after the Fed and Treasury's takeovers of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and American International Group Inc. this month.
Discussions with the Treasury and Fed focus on ``trying to do something more permanent'' after the series of government interventions, the New York senator said. For the Fed, ``it's hard for them to do monetary policy, which is their primary task, and then run all these businesses,'' he said.
Fed officials announced an $85 billion takeover of AIG two days ago, hours after leaving their benchmark interest rate unchanged in a decision that rebuffed some investors' calls for a cut.
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``There is some preliminary discussions about how to sort of encapsulate and separate the two -- both to keep focus on monetary policy by the main Fed leaders, but also to prevent any conflicts of interest,'' Schumer said.
Lawmakers are weighing responses to a crisis that prompted Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to seize Fannie and Freddie and caused the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in the past two weeks.
Schumer proposed a solution using the Great Depression-era Reconstruction Finance Corp. as a model.
``This step would allow federal and private efforts to modify loans, and avoid defaults and foreclosures, which have been at the root of the turmoil in U.S. financial markets,'' Schumer said in a statement today.
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, this week proposed Congress create a federal entity to buy bad loans. Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, a former candidate for the Democratic nomination for president, proposed resurrecting a 1930s-era agency to stem foreclosures.
``We need a modern day Home Owners' Loan Corporation,'' Clinton said in remarks at the Senate today. ``There will not be any semblance of a normal or orderly market'' without ``quarantining'' the devalued loans outstanding, she said.
The HOLC bought up outstanding mortgage and issued new, more affordable loans that helped people stay in their homes, Clinton said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Alison Vekshin in Washington at
avekshin@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: September 18, 2008 15:00 EDT