WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is preparing a comprehensive strategy to address the escalating financial crisis, stem home foreclosures and jump-start the overall economy, signaling that the president hopes to deal with the problems systematically instead of case by case. The plan probably will not be delivered for several weeks, Timothy Geithner, the nominee for Treasury secretary, said Wednesday. ‘We’re at the beginning of this process of repairing the system, not close to the end of that process,’ Geithner told the Senate Finance Committee. ‘And it is going to require much more substantial action on a very dramatic scale.’ But on the banking front, it remains to be seen how much time the administration has to come up with a plan. For the last several weeks, Obama and his aides had hoped that the financial system, though seriously weakened, would remain stable enough to allow the administration to focus on repairing the broader economy, which would help lift the prospects of financial firms along with those of ordinary Americans. But fear of a wider banking collapse has grown in recent days, with signs that losses at major banks are deepening. Wall Street gave the […]