US Treasury To Roll Out...

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><root available-locales="en_US," default-locale="en_US"><static-content language-id="en_US"><![CDATA[View Slideshow: Global Gloom (Reuters) The US Treasury Department will in the next few days outline new requirements for Wall Street firms receiving federal aid and further steps to rescue the financial system, officials said on Monday. The rules, expected to be announced in the next several days, will include lending standards for banks and restrictions on executive pay, a source familiar with administration thinking said. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will lay out the financial rescue plan in its entirety in a speech planned for next week, another source said. Geithner is responding to President Barack Obama, who recently scolded Wall Street executives for taking large bonuses while taking government bailout money. Obama, in an interview with NBC, said he had asked Geithner to &quot;put together a clear set of guidelines. If a bank or a financial institution is getting relief, then they've got to abide by certain conditions.&quot; He would not say whether the administration intended to create a government entity to take toxic assets off bank balance sheets. Obama said some bad debts would be written down while the government supported some banks and dealt with bad assets as &quot;part of an overall plan that not only strengthens credit markets, but, more importantly, puts people back to work.&quot; On Monday, Geithner shuttled between regulators and lawmakers to thrash out details of both a financial rescue and fiscal stimulus to pull the economy out of a deep recession. Along with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair and Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan, Geithner spent part of Monday trying to craft the financial rescue and also met with House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank. Geithner will have a hand in doling out $350 billion in aid to Wall Street and shaping the stimulus, now valued at $900 billion which Obama hopes to see passed by mid-February. Some Democrats have said setting up a bank to take on bad assets could cost $4 trillion. However Obama said, &quot;We're not going to be spending $4 trillion worth of taxpayer money.&quot; He said some banks had likely not fully acknowledged all their expected losses and would have to write those down. &quot;And some banks won't make it,&quot; Obama said. &quot;But we're going to have to wring out some of these bad assets.&quot; The financial rescue effort will chiefly be funded through the second half of a $700 billion financial rescue fund but more resources might be needed to prop up the sector and deliver aid to homeowners facing foreclosure. (Reuters)