Bank Stress Test

The Washington Post writes:

The government signaled yesterday that its financial rescue efforts may have reached their high-water mark, announcing that the much-anticipated "stress tests" of 19 large banks showed that only one, GMAC, was likely to need additional taxpayer aid and that it would begin to unwind assistance for the healthiest firms.

That is welcome news, but the threat of nationalization still hang over our biggest financial institutions:

The government's demand that 10 of the banks raise billions in common equity creates a virtual referendum on nationalization. The banks have six months to persuade private investors to buy new shares of their common stock, or else the firms could be forced to grant the Treasury a voting ownership stake.

Mixed news is better then bad news.