It's a good question. The answer is: basically nothing, with the added disadvantage that we have no greater clarity on how much they're worth. Ezra analyzes Tim Geithner's big flop:
The adverse scenario envisioned in the stress tests looks increasingly mild. The tests imagined a world in which unemployment reached 8.9 percent. Last month, unemployment reached 9.4 percent. The PPIP's loans program has died, the assets sit unpriced, but there is still no judgment as to whether that means the banks are insolvent or, conversely, in such surprisingly good condition that they can let the loans mature on their balance sheets.
In other words, it doesn't seem like we know a lot more than we knew a few months ago. The economy certainly "feels" better, and that's been enough to drain the urgency from some of these questions. But have the questions really gone away?
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