Boy, the Fed sure is getting creative with their goosing of Big Finance.  I’ve never heard of this one, wtf?:

Wall Street cheered news that Federal Reserve will pour $200 billion into the troubled financial system. Stocks surged in the last half hour of trading, sending major indexes up 3.5% to 4%.

Working with the central banks in Europe, Canada and elsewhere, the Fed will offer loans to financial institutions and will accept as collateral various securities, including the mortgage-backed debt that has caused so much trouble since July. […]

The Fed has used the so-called Term Securities Lending Facility, or TSLF, just as an overnight loan, but the new liquidity infusions will last 28 days. “The TSLF is intended to promote liquidity in the financing markets for Treasury and other collateral and thus to foster the functioning of financial markets more generally,” the Fed said in a statement. (emphasis mine)

Debt as investment was goofy enough.  Now debt as collateral for loans?  And this is considered a credible enough tactic that it actually has an official term?
Well damn, no wonder Spitzer had to pay so much.  A dollar doesn’t get as much poon as it used to…