Response

I did get a response from all of our Congressional representation on the note opposing the bailout bill passed the other week. Basically, they thought the bill was good enough and needed to be done. I agree with the latter, but strongly disagree with the former. The bill was, and is, a joke. Correction: Congressman Goodlatte voted against the revised bill - I misread the roll call. He send a letter explaining his position which was basically that the bill wasn't missing a few key provisions on creating an insurance pool and wasn't guaranteed to work. There are no guarantees on this sort of thing, but I agree with his basic position.

At least Paulson has seen the sense of going the capitalization route instead of merely buying bad debt. I guess with the powers granted in the legislation, he could pretty much do anything he wants. We will see if the measures work to revive confidence in the banking system and at what ultimate cost. If the TED spread is any indicator, it hasn't done much yet to calm nerves about interbank lending.