by Caitlin Kenney

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner won't be on Planet Money this afternoon, but he did make an appearance over on CNBC. Here's a bit of what he said:

BURNETT: And the question is, are things a lot worse than we think with the banks, that—or are they, need to take the training wheels off and stop freeloading off the taxpayer?

Sec. GEITHNER: I think you're going to see people start to raise equity again. I think they will.

BURNETT: Soon?

Sec. GEITHNER: Not sure how soon, but I think that'll happen. Again, by helping get these markets for real estate...(unintelligible)...loans going again, if you're helping provide financing to get the securities markets going again, you're going to make it more likely that these guys
are able to clean up their balance sheets and raise private equity again. I—it'll come.

Watch video of the interview after the jump.

 

BURNETT: How quickly is this—I mean, it seems like it's contingent on this plan starting to work. Some investors I've spoke with have said we could start to have auctions as soon as right after Easter. Is that too aggressive of an expectation?

Sec. GEITHNER: We're moving as quickly as we can, and as soon as we have the terms designed in a way we think it'll work for the taxpayer, and soon as we get the operational infrastructure in place, we're moving. But I think the—and this is joint Treasury/Fed/FDIC program. We'll—we're going to move as quickly as we can.

Read the full transcript and watch the rest of the interview here.