Man, does Arnold Kling sound pessimistic today. I can’t say that I disagree with him, though. Effectively, Congress and the President passed a bill allowing Obama’s Treasury Secretary (as, unfortunately, the likelihood of his victory has jumped beyond 50% and is probably in the upper 60s right now) to pass out hundreds of billions of dollars to supporters, keeping all of the institutional problems in place. What are the benefits here for effectively making government the top player in the financial sector and opening doors to all kinds of bailouts and interventionism? I guess it keeps Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke from crying that the sky is falling (leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy).
Speaking of “loose lips sink ships” problems, Harry Reid goes out and says that he knows of a major insurance company on the verge of bankruptcy. After major insurance companies took a hit, Reid then goes out and says that he was just making it all up. Reid and Pelosi are a perfect fit for each other: so incompetent that partisan Republicans couldn’t hope for a better pair of congressional leaders.
