Put up or Shut up!

I have come the conclusion that all our gub'mint has done so far vis a vis the financial crisis is to make matters worse.

First of all, they helped kick it off with overly lax monetary policy and almost a complete lack of regulatory oversight over private firms selling mortage backed securities and derivatives.

Second, they picked which firms to save and which to let go down in a fairly arbitrary manner (bailout for Bear, toilet for Lehman).

Third, they put together an ill advised rescue plan, and when Congress balked, larded it up with $150 billion of pork to get it through.

Fourth, despite apocalyptic statements like those of Ben Bernanke (if this doesn't pass today we might not have an economy Monday) and others, nothing has been done to implement the plan in the 10 days since its passage.

Now, the NY Times reports that buying the so called toxic assets is on the back burner and the new plan is to directly inject capital into banks by buying shares. While I and many many others have advocated this approach over the buying asset approach, check out this sentence from the article regard implementation:

"Treasury officials said they hoped to make the first capital investments within the next two weeks."

Wow. Our goverment's statements and actions and lack of follow through have had, in my opinion, the effect of increasing fear and uncertainty rather than mitigating either.

People, they can't even follow the first rule for being in a hole.