In his story U.S. Shifts Focus in Credit Bailout to the Consumer on Treasury Secretary Paulson's announcement that the government was shifting its bailout strategy to promote credit card and other consumer lending, Edmund Andrews of the New York Times points out that (1) "Fed officials appeared to be taken aback" [at the public announcement], (2) "taxpayers would be indirectly liable for the entire volume of lending" and (3) [the] "arrangement would bear a similarity to exactly the highly leveraged, and eventually disastrous, special-investment vehicles that banks like Citigroup created in countless numbers to hold, among other things, securities backed by subprime mortgages."

Paulson's spin is that the new program will directly help consumers. His old plan was supposed to help consumers, too, but that plan to buy bad assets only helped institutions, because they took the taxpayer money and ran. They didn't follow through and lend with the new money as they were supposed to. The money in the new plan is still going to banks but supposedly can only be used to help promote, leverage and securitize new lending. We'll see how Plan B goes, if it is actually implemented, since it appears that the Fed may not yet be fully on board. Meanwhile, Paulson still has no plans to help consumers, such as those in foreclosure, directly.