Not a Dirty Word

Talk of "nationalizing the banks" is in the air again this week, as President Obama hits the road to sell his recovery plan and Tim Geithner, the new chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission gets ready to announce his rescue strategy for the nation's financial institutions. There's plenty to rescue. Bank of America—the country's biggest bank—saw its stock hit a 25-year low, while Citigroup is barely off the bottom it reached last month; even Wells Fargo—once thought the "safest" of the big banks—has lost half its value in the last 60 days. You might wonder, as many are, what's left for the government to "nationalize." But that may be the wrong issue.