At least they added the proviso: “the Federal Reserve and Treasury Secretary can’t authorize these funds unless “there is at least a 99 percent likelihood that all funds and interest will be paid back”
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Yes, technically this is an option on a future loan. While it has some value, it’s some tiny fraction of $4 trillion (albeit still a large number). The headline suggests that Congress just handed the banks $4 trillion that’s never to be seen again.
I find disturbingly little balance in the coverage of this crisis. The media (generically) portray the financiers as evil bungling megalomaniacs while the Officialdom tries to paint the same merely as folks dealt a bad hand (“could’ve happened to anyone”) and thus deserving of extreme levels of assistance.
