A congressional panel overseeing the U.S. financial rescue said the government should consider firing underperforming management and liquidating problem banks. The Congressional Oversight Panel also said the Treasury may be relying on too optimistic an economic scenario to guide its $700 billion bailout, and declared that the success of the program after six months is “mixed.” Three of the group's members disagreed with at least some of the findings. “All successful efforts to address bank crises have involved the combination of moving aside failed management and getting control of the process of valuing bank balance sheets,” the panel, headed by Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Warren, said in its report. The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) hinges on injecting capital into banks and removing up to $1 trillion in toxic assets from their balance sheets through public-private investment partnerships. The government is also working to unfreeze credit markets through a Federal Reserve program that provides loans to investors in some asset-backed securities.
