The industry has thus lost almost $14 billion over the last 12 months, as both healthy and sick institutions have been drained of precious resources.

The plan would be for the Government to move in quickly - within weeks - and assume managerial control of the sick institutions.

He said he expected it would cost $17.4 billion to shut down or bail out the sick institutions.

Timing is critical because sick institutions are losing incredible amounts of money every day.

But some see potential problems if Congress does not provide enough money for the bank board to shut down the sick institutions.

It is expected to take over 400 to 500 sick institutions, as they are called, with assets approaching $300 billion.

He has also said far more than the original 500 sick institutions would have to be taken over by the Government.

This good will represents the losses at sick institutions that were acquired by healthy ones.

In almost every sale, the Government actually pays investors to take these sick institutions off its hands.

Some experts say the sick institutions are piling up losses of $500 million a month.