by Calculated Risk on 5/27/2009 08:39:00 PM

From the WSJ: Plan to Buy Banks' Bad Loans Founders

The Legacy Loans Program [LLP], being crafted by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., [as] part of the $1 trillion Public Private Investment Program [PPIP] ... is stalling and may soon be put on hold, according to people familiar with the matter.
...
PPIP was to be split between the FDIC program, which would buy whole loans, and one run by the Treasury Department focusing on securities. Treasury is expected to push ahead with its plan -- the larger and more substantial of the two -- and could begin purchases sometime this summer.

Also FDIC Chairwoman Sheila Bair said today that banks would not be allowed to use the PPIP to buy their own assets. But she didn't rule out banks buying assets from each other. From Rolfe Winkler writing at Naked Capitalism: FDIC Won't Rule Out Banks as Buyers of Toxic Assets

Below, I've transcribed Bair's full response to the question she was asked about PPIP....

No [banks] will not be able to bid on their own assets. I think there has been some confusion about that....There will be no structure where we would allow banks to bid on their own assets. I think there have been separate issues about whether banks can be buyers on other bank assets and I think that's an issue that we continue to look at.

This is probably OK if a healthy bank is a buyer only and doesn't sell any assets using the PPIP. But banks shouldn't be both buyers and sellers.