Business life: My finance news blog

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson pressed his case for an unprecedented $700 billion bailout of financial markets on Sunday as negotiations over the plan opened between the administration and Congress.

The sweeping proposal would have the Treasury buy up bad mortgage-related debts from financial institutions, including U.S. subsidiaries of foreign banks, to try to stem the worst financial storm since the Great Depression.

Two key questions, however, remained unanswered even after Paulson appeared on four national television talk shows. What price will the United States pay for these toxic debts, which spawned a global credit crisis. When will it start buying them?

Paulson painted the proposed intervention into private markets as a necessary evil, arguing the consequences of inaction would be so dire that the large burden taxpayers would shoulder would be worth it.

“This is not something that we wanted to do faxless payday loans freecreditreport. This was something that was very necessary,” Paulson said on the NBC Sunday program “Meet the Press.”

“We did this to protect the taxpayer.”

LAWMAKERS VOW SWIFT ACTION

New York Sen. Charles Schumer, a member of the Democratic leadership, said Democrats would not load up the bill with numerous extraneous provisions and said a measure to give a lift to the economy would likely be moved separately. 

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