New FDIC toxic asset plan: Sell the assets of failed banks

Now that the banks have their training wheels on -- now that they've shown they can raise private funds and clean up their balance sheets without depending on the FDIC's Legacy Loan Program (a.k.a., "toxic-assets program") -- the FDIC plans to use the TARP funds slated for the program to sell troubled assets of failed banks.

The revised program is expected to look something like the process developed for the Resolution Trust Corporation, which shut failed savings-and-loans in the 1980s and 1990s. Yesterday, it looked like the LLP may be dead. But it's not dead. It's just being reborn as something else.