Originally Posted by Villages Kahuna

I don't disagree with anything you've said. with one exception. It's impossible to create a business plan for an entire market. If additional funds were investd in banks, the government along with the bank could determine the effect on it's capital ratio. The margin over that minimum required to meet regulatory and soundness requirements could be measured. The amount of that margin could easily be calculated to determine how much in additional credit exposure each bank could take if creditworthy borrowers asked for credit.

It's that last part that's impossible to model. Some assumptions could be made--which as you and I both know are the basis for any business plan anyway--to assess how much additional bank credit capacity would be created by new government investments. But that's all any such plan would be--assumptions. Only reality would determine whether creditworthy borrowers would show up on the bank's doorsteps.

One thing I'm pretty sure of--prospective retail borrowers who want to borrow 110% of the value of their home, or who don't have an employment history showing that they can repay their loans, will not likely get beyond the bank guard at the front door. It won't be all that different with corporate borrowers. The little guy who needs a loan for his hardware store "just to make it until sales increase" can probably have coffee with the underfunded mortgage borrower.

You would have an argument that it's that type of corporate loan that has already been made to the auto companies and you'd be right. That could produce an argument that the next traunch of government stimulus money should go to all the little hardware store and botique owners across America with possibly better results on economic activity. But those folks wouldn't know a business plan if one jumped up and hit them in the face.