Maybe you could say that PPIP lost its pop. Or maybe it was justlate to the table. Maybe its inception was simply paved with goodintentions. May be. The fact is that the government's PublicPrivate Investment Program after a year of mystery, outrage andconjecture, and two quarters of activity, has utilized only about5% of its projected purchasing power. It seems that the proposedtoxic asset savior, when push came to shove, garnered little faithamong the commercial real estate community and in the processbecame a shell of its once Olympian ambitions. Dial back to March23, 2009 when the government announced PPIP. The market was fearfulof the potential for toxic assets to hamstring banks' balancesheets and strangle the loan market.

The proposal, at its core, was a mix of government-subsidizedfree market ideology and private capital, calling for a select fewfund managers to facilitate price discovery through competitiveacquisition of troubled debt. The prognostication from the Capitolwas that the program would be able to raise $500 billion ofpurchasing power under the auspices of the public privatepartnerships and jump-start the skittish investment market.

With an April 10, 2009 deadline, the Department of Treasuryinsisted the funds would be selected using narrow criteria: