The Bush administration shifted into "shock and awe" mode last week in its attack on the credit crisis, abandoning the gradualist approach of the first 10 months of the year in favor of blasting the frozen nexus of lenders, borrowers and buyers with a new set of 10,000-degree heat rays.
Make no mistake: This is the War to Save Credit. No more quarter-point cuts in interest rates or measly $25 billion injections of bank capital for this crew, now that its power is ebbing and the incoming executive-branch team is stealing its thunder. The Treasury Department and Federal Reserve have opened a gun rack full of trillion-dollar programs aimed at forcing loss-ridden banks such as Citigroup (C, news, msgs) to lend like mad.
Make no mistake: This is the War to Save Credit. No more quarter-point cuts in interest rates or measly $25 billion injections of bank capital for this crew, now that its power is ebbing and the incoming executive-branch team is stealing its thunder. The Treasury Department and Federal Reserve have opened a gun rack full of trillion-dollar programs aimed at forcing loss-ridden banks such as Citigroup (C, news, msgs) to lend like mad.
