You are now $3000 poorer.

[barking_iguana]

The federal government is now putting together an emergency bailout not of a particular financial company, but of the financial sector and markets as a whole. The picture of doom and gloom presented by Bernanke and Paulson were so persuasive that congressional leaders of both parties are acting together as they haven't since before Cherub Gingrich pooped in the congressional well.

It looks like it will cost the federal government on the order of $1,000,000,000,000.00. That's about $3,000.00 for every breathing person in the country.

There are almost no details yet. Maybe it will cost less. Maybe the federal government will end up with equity that it will then resell. Or maybe it will cost even more.

For impact on the election, it probably helps Obama (or rather, hurts McCain), for obvious reasons. But if people sieze up with fear, that may make them more susceptible to the kind of truth-challenged, fear-mongering campaign that McCain is running on the economy and every other issue.

But whoever the new President is, he will probably preside over a government that simultaneously is poorer yet has more power over the economy than we are used to. And whoever it is, economic conditions will probably quickly make him unpopular. But because the crisis started before the election and things (we hope) will eventually turn around, the bar the President will be measured against will be low. He will have many old and new levers to lift himself over that bar and he will have a good chance of being considered a hero before 2012.

Comments

[chemoelectric.livejournal.com]

It’s a great time to be president; a good opportunity to be a democratizing hero, as well. This reminds me of Mike Malloy saying he doesn’t know why anyone would want to become president now (what I would expect someone clinically depressed to say), and my retort that this is a really good time to become president. I think it would be a nightmare to make it all the way to president and then have no opportunity to distinguish yourself; you’d have to start a war or something like that.