Public-private partnerships seen for banks

WASHINGTON, March 15 (UPI) -- Private investors such as hedge funds and private equity firms will be a "key component" in the plan to rescue U.S. banks, an administration official says.

White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee, speaking on the "Fox News Sunday" program, said private-public partnerships will be counted on to help remove "toxic assets" from the books of struggling major U.S. financial institutions.

"That is a key component to the plan, but that is not the only key component," Goolsbee said, adding that stress tests must be used to determine the "situation the banks are in, so the biggest problem that we've had is massive uncertainty over which institution has what and in what situation is each institution."

After that is accomplished, he said, "I don't think that any reasonable person would disagree with the view that the administration has put forward that it's better to do this jointly with private capital than it is to have the government and the American taxpayer pay for the whole thing."