The new Treasury Department is turning out to be quite particular about how its programs are labeled.
Take the Capital Purchase Program. It´s now called the Capital Assistance Program.
And today, when Treasury released details about how it plans to gauge the health of the 19 largest banks, officials made it clear they no longer favor the phrase "stress test."
In the numerous documents released on the program it referred to the program as an "assessment" and stayed clear of using the word "test."
During a conference call on the plan, a senior administration official dismissed a reporter´s chacterization of it as a stress test.
"It is not a pass/fail test," a senior government official said. "It is one tool the examiners will use to understand the risks of a firm´s activities, it´s balance sheets, it´s commitment and the assessment, is going to include risk far greater than what is represented, far greater meaning more expansive not deeper, but more expansive than what the template would suggest."
But it may be tough to make that change stick considering Treasury Secretary Tim Geither has already embraced the word.
"We´re going to require banking institutions to go through a carefully designed comprehensive stress test, to use the medical term," Mr. Geithner said on Feb. 10. "We want their balance sheets cleaner, and stronger. And we are going to help this process by providing a new program of capital support for those institutions which need it."
