Who wins, loses under bailout proposal?

Failure to reach a deal could have sent stock markets around the world tumbling today.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The proposal to bail out U.S. financial markets to the tune of up to $700 billion creates a lot of potential short-term winners, as well as some losers.

Wall Street and the banking industry are perhaps the biggest winners. Scores of banks and other financial institutions faced with going under stand to gain a lifeline that should allow them to start making loans again.

Under the plan that congressional aide sought to put into final form Sunday, the Treasury Department can start buying up troubled mortgage-related securities now held by these institutions.

These securities are clogging balance sheets, leaving banks without the required capital to make new loans and putting the banks dangerously close to insolvency.

Banks not only have slowed lending to individuals and businesses, they have stopped making loans to one another. The rescue plan should help restore confidence to financial markets.

There are other winners, too, if the bailout works as intended: anyone soon trying to borrow money — for cars, student loans, even to open new credit card accounts.

Top executives at troubled financial institutions, on the other hand, are in the losing column because the proposal would limit their compensation and rules out “golden parachutes.”

Of course, these executives may take solace in knowing their jobs still exist.

Investors, including the millions of people who hold stock in their 401(k) and pension plans, should benefit. Failure to reach a deal over the weekend could have sent stock markets around the world tumbling today.

Homeowners faced with foreclosure or those who have lost their homes get little help from the agreement. Nor will it help people whose houses are worth less than what they owe get refinancing or take out equity loans.

It would do little to halt the slide in home values that are one of the root causes of the current economic slowdown.

“It doesn’t deal with the fundamental problems that gave rise to the problem — or alleviate the credit crisis,” said Peter Morici, an economist and business professor at the University of Maryland.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke are potential winners.

In just a few months, they have remade Wall Street. If the plan helps to get the economy moving again, they may be remembered for having kept the financial crisis from spreading throughout the economy.