“The Zombie Thoughts Have Won” – Paul Krugman on $1 Trillion Geithner Plot to Buy Toxic Bank Assets Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is preparing to tell a plot today to buy as much as $1 trillion in troubled mortgages and other assets from banks. The government is reaching out to ring fence funds, private equity firms and independent wealth funds to help buy the toxic assets. The Obama administration has described the plot as a public-private partnership, but most of the actual money will be place up by the government. We speak with Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist, Paul Krugman.