Bob Herbert Today

[lsanderson]

One of the reasons the U.S. is in such deep trouble is that it has stopped being smart — turning its back on excellence, sophistication and long-term planning — in its public policies and corporate behavior. We’ve seen it in Iraq, in New Orleans, in the fiscal policies of the Bush administration, in the scandalous neglect of public education, in the financial sector meltdown, the auto industry and on and on. We’ve lionized dimwits. And now we’re paying the price. More

Comments

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

Whether we'll do it right is still an open question (along with whether this new planning Bank will be making decisions that ought to be made by Congress), but it does look like progress.

Meanwhile, I read this just after noticing the announcement that The Current Administration (& Mr. Paulson) are (acto the lead featured in Google News) planning on devoting a big chunk of the bailout money to supporting Lending Institutions (to encourage student loans, &cet.), apparently on the Theory that encouraging people to borrow more money and Go Shopping is just the thing to help cure a Problem/Crash precipitated by lending money to people who couldn't afford to repay it. And this at a time when unemployment is increasing "more rapidly than expected".

The phrase "You're doing a heck of a job, guys" does come to mind, loaded with ambiguity and sarcasm.