1. Sweden had only 4 to 6 big banks (big relative to their economy)

2. The government owned 80% of one of the largest banks even before the crisis began.

3. When Sweden poured money into the bank they acted as the owner.

4. The owner of another of those big banks didn’t (or couldn’t) put any more money into it. They literally forced the government to take the bank, the government didn’t want it.

5. These were the only two banks nationalized, the one the government already owned and the one they were forced to take. None of the other big banks were nationalized.

The vide chairman does think nationalizing some banks is a good idea, but Sweden doesn’t provide an example for us to follow.

Planet Money also has a good post about why we can’t have a healthy debate about nationalizing banks.

So, if I can report on NPR that someone told me the government is considering nationalization (I’m not, by the way. Nobody has told me that), then those banks might collapse immediately and the government would have no choice. They’d have to nationalize.

Mellon Bank will administer the auctions and then track the assets and their disposition. The amount of Mellon’s compensation is redacted from the contract.

The the contracts for the accounting firms that will keep tabs on the program had the compensation redacted.

This info was at BailoutSleuth.com, head out there for the complete details and more information. It came to me via Planet Money.