U.S. to Buy Stakes in Banks to Help Free Credit.

The Treasury secretary Henry Paulson said Friday that the government would move ahead with a plan to take equity stakes in financial institutions as it tried to restore confidence in the financial system.Mr. Paulson’s comments came shortly after the finance heads of the world’s major economies promised to work together to ease the global financial crisis that had roiled the markets for the last week.
“We are developing strategies to use the authority to purchase and insure mortgage assets and to purchase equity in financial institutions, as deemed necessary to promote financial market stability,” Mr. Paulson said in a news conference.More