"That helped ignite the current panic, which was exacerbated by a drumbeat of bleak economic news."

From the WSJ story about the Citi deal:

"Citigroup has tried repeatedly to rid itself of its exposure to those assets -- and nearly hammered out a similar arrangement with the government nearly two months ago.

In late September, the company reached an agreement for a government-financed acquisition of Wachovia Corp. Under that planned deal, Citigroup and the government were going to divvy up the losses on $312 billion of assets, with Citigroup absorbing the first $30 billion in losses and the government shouldering the remainder.

Citigroup described that arrangement as intended to insulate it from Wachovia's risky mortgage assets. But Citigroup also would have been able to unload some of its own assets, according to people familiar with the matter.

That deal unraveled in less than a week, after Wells Fargo & Co. emerged with a higher bid that didn't require direct government backing. That deprived Citigroup not only of a way to dump its risky assets but also of a deep pool of deposits, which would have substantially strengthened its access to stable low-cost funding.

Shortly after the Wachovia deal fell apart, Citigroup pitched the idea to the government of it helping to protect the company against some of its losses. Citigroup executives argued that the government should help the company after Wachovia slipped away, according to a person familiar with the matter. But federal officials balked at the idea."

That's how the Wachovia deal impacted the current Citi problems.

"As recently as one month ago, Citigroup had hoped to be able to unload some of those assets to the U.S. government through its Troubled Asset Relief Program, according to people familiar with the bank's plans. But when Treasury Secretary Paulson earlier this month shelved plans to use TARP to purchase banks' bad assets, that option vanished."

This is interesting. TARP pulled the rug out from under Citi with the Wachovia deal, and TARP not buying toxic assets calcified the toxic assets market so Citi could get rid of some of its toxic assets. Maybe Paulson felt that he owed Citi.

"Last Monday, Mr. Pandit said in a meeting with employees that Citigroup was scrapping plans to try to sell about $80 billion in risky assets. Investors and analysts interpreted the move as a sign that Citigroup either was unable to sell the assets, or would have had to incur hefty losses in the process.

Two days later, Citigroup announced it was buying $17.4 billion in assets from its structured-investment vehicles -- complex entities whose holdings included risky mortgage-linked securities -- and faced a $1.1 billion loss due to their diminished values.

The back-to-back moves, coupled with existing fears about Citigroup's massive off-balance-sheet holdings, stoked investor fears that Citigroup could be swamped by toxic assets flooding back onto its books. That helped ignite the current panic, which was exacerbated by a drumbeat of bleak economic news."

I'm on record saying that this was a panic reaction, and not sensible, so I'm still not sure that this was necessary. I didn't doubt that the government would step in if it had to, but I'm not sure, absent panic, we'd have been in this position.

"Government officials could face requests from other banks for similar help shoring up their balance sheets. Banks, hedge funds, and private equity firms have urged Capitol Hill and government officials to restart the asset-purchase program in recent weeks.

"The problem is that other banks would want to get in line" for such government support, says Thomas B. Michaud, a vice chairman of investment bank Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Inc. "Is there enough money to do that?"

I think that we can guarantee this.