What conceivable reason would Geithner have to pitch something like this?

is simple:

Under Geithner’s plan, the government accepts all the risk and none of the profits and puts up almost all of the money?

It’s not a bug. It’s a feature.

The fact that the Dollar remains the world-reserve currency at all today is the direct result of that choice. Also, we’re not sitting in a wave of inflation. Reign in a little of that ideology, and you might actually notice the deflation paradox going on around you.

This program will unleash a wave of debt collectors on the American public.

First it’s said this isn’t a jobs program and now you say it will produce lots of jobs. Sheesh.

Naahhhh, it’ll never fly. Geithner’s got banker buddies to bail out, and they come first, apparently.

After the flush of excitement that came with Obama’s victory, I have to say I could not be more disgusted with the whole pack of them. Called Schumer’s & Gillibrand’s offices today, the first business day after the AIG Bonus story broke, and go through right away. Sad–I would have hoped their phone lines would be jammed by furious constituents.

Ultra-cheap financing with no risk for the investors is exactly what investors thought they were getting with collateralized debt obligations. They were wrong then, but this time they’ll be right, because Geithner is giving them the money. [My emph —pd]

That makes it exactly the same flow schematic as those downpayer assistance program mortgages that have done as well as any at going belly-up.

Until the system crashes when the real plan is unveiled.
http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine

Bernanke’s put guarantees looters their profits and immunizes them against losses and criminal sanctions.

Don’t Know Much About History

The First Bank of the United States was created in 1791. Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, proposed this bank and convinced a hesitant President Washington to agree. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were against the concept. It favored the moneyed classes of the North versus the agrarian South. The bank was given a 20 year charter and President James Madison let it expire in 1811. He then renewed the charter in 1816. The wise men who took unprecedented risks in declaring independence from England’s tyranny, feared the tyranny of bankers equally: President Jackson’s honesty and anger at the bankers should resonate today, as bankers have again brought our country to its knees.

Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the grace of the Eternal God, will rout you out.

A President with Jackson’s strength of character would put the blame where it belongs today. He would rout out these criminal bankers, rather than give them more taxpayer money to squander. A President with a moral backbone would put an end to the disastrous 96 year experiment of the Federal Reserve. Instead our last two spineless Presidents have put Goldman Sachs bankers in charge of our national Treasury. An examination of inflation throughout the history of the United States proves that from the beginning of our nation through wars and the Industrial Revolution, the country experienced virtually no inflation as our currency was backed by gold. The creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913 and the closing of the gold window in 1971 unleashed a tsunami of inflation that continues today.

politicians are maneuvering for political advantage, business leaders for economic advantage and the foreign policy establishment for geopolitical advantage

Yes, theft in broad daylight at First and Main with a crowd standing around watching.

We could recreate our whole banking system out of what the Fed and Treasury have committed to the criminal enterprise that is the current banking system. … and make it honest to boot.

This is correct … and why aren’t we ?