New bank bailout fails to address core economic problems

By Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — The financial rescue plan unveiled Tuesday offers important moves to spur consumer lending, experts said, but it fails to answer key questions about how it would attack fundamental causes of the deepening economic crisis.

Drawing praise is an expansion of a program announced last December to have the Federal Reserve backstop loans to consumers. The Fed and Treasury Department will provide up to $100 billion in loans to private investors willing to purchase pools of loans for cars, students, credit cards, small business and nonresidential mortgages