Consumer and Business Lending Initiative

Know the best way for the federal government to shore up its role in creating a massive financial crisis that nearly fueled an Armageddon hellscape?

If you answered, "more interference and centralized planning," step up and collect your Treasury bond.

After the 2008 financial crisis, the government set up the Troubled Asset Relief Program in October 2008, shortly after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the ensuing credit crisis.

One of the key parts of that plan was to establish the Consumer and Business Lending Initiative. This plan started with a seed lending fund of $200 billion for lending private investors on the secondary lending market, which included students, small businesses, and other entities.

The program would provide upwards of $1 trillion in lending, if required, to unfreeze credit markets.