The Federal Reserve has begun purchasing asset-backed securities containing things like student loan and credit card debt.
Central banks eventually restored confidence and brought rates to heel by flooding the market with liquidity and by purchasing asset-backed securities for which private-sector buyers had largely disappeared.
Stanford immediately embarked on a push into the Latin American market, purchasing assets in Mexico, Venezuela and Ecuador.
Soon the German press was describing governments purchasing assets via their central banks as a "cash tsunami" or "printing money".
Mr. Paulson mobilized the big banks to find a way to rescue S.I.V.'s by purchasing assets from them.
The central bank also invented approaches to lending and purchasing assets that breathed some life into moribund markets like commercial paper and mortgage-backed securities.
The Bank of England has held the base rate at 0.5% since March 2009 and has injected £200 billion into the economy by purchasing assets with central-bank money.
"When we first asked for the TARP legislation in September, we were looking at purchasing assets," says Ms. Davis, the former Treasury spokeswoman.
The program was aimed at purchasing assets and equity from banks to strengthen them and encourage them to expand lending during a tightening credit squeeze.
Paulson has indicated that Treasury may be prepared to start purchasing assets within weeks.
That means more involvement by the capital markets, both in financing and purchasing assets.
