Thank you, Mr. Menzies.
There are a couple of things. One is that, just to be absolutely clear, the $4.1 trillion is the estimate of the IMF—we're not necessarily endorsing it. But I'd make two comments, and I'm not trying to be cute. Part of the reason they're called “toxic” assets is that their presence affects or poisons existing management of the institutions that hold them. So you end up having a situation where management is spending a disproportionate amount of its time on the work-out of these assets, as opposed to running the institution on a go-forward basis, thinking about new loans and new activities they could do.
That's why in general in banking crises—and there have been a hundred-odd banking crises over the course of the last 30 years, unfortunately, around the world—the preferred strategy ultimately becomes to separate those assets from those institutions that are going to move on, going forward, because you really do need to have banks that are thinking about the extension of credit on a go-forward basis, as opposed to spending the vast majority of their time working out distressed credits.
So where will they go? There are a variety of strategies. Different countries will take different strategies, and there is the option of either purchasing them or transferring them to a vehicle so that the upside and the downside from those assets accrues to the taxpayer. In some countries that is what will be done and is being done. That can be done through nationalization and separation. It can be done through the sale of assets or the appropriation of those assets in exchange for new capital. It can be done through an insurance scheme. It can be done in a variety of ways, and different countries will do different things.
The United States' plan is that institutions would be able to sell those assets to market participants, who themselves have received financing from the public authorities in the United States in a way to jump-start the asset sale process, both for securities, toxic assets, and for impaired loans under a couple of extremely important programs. That's an element of this stabilization we will watch quite closely.