I found this article over at Bloomberg.com to have some pretty good information summarizing recent political steps regarding the economy, the bailouts and the auto industry.

President-elect Obama made a statement about his plans to forge a huge infrastructural investment strategy to help curb the economic crisis starting sometime next year.  Other than that the program is going to be a sizable, there are not enough details to determine what effects this will have on both the short term and long term time scales.  What one can rely on is that there are going to be plenty of entrepreneurial opportunities for companies to help with the process.  This correlates with my own experience talking with investors and entrepreneurs who survived the S&L crisis.

Tags: Economy | Financial | Current Events | Real Estate

I don't know Henry Paulson.  Is he a decent guy, trying to do the right thing in difficult times?  Probably.  Is it just a coincidence that, as a former Goldman Sachs executive, he oversaw the demise of three of Goldman's biggest competitors, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns, while Goldman lives on?  Probably.  Is it relevant that the vast majority of his wealth is held in Goldman Sachs stocks?  Probably not.  But there is no mistaking that the actions that led to him being dubbed "Mr. Risk" is a strong indicator that his philosophy of extensive leverage is part and parcel of the current crisis facing the financial institutions.

We're facing a unique problem in that those who are advocating extreme measures of government intervention in this crisis are doing so not because they necessarily want a socialized economy, but are acting in order to preserve a free market.  In this article from CNN, Paulson himself admits to such a way of thinking.  His rationale is that government intervention is necessary now because it wasn't implemented earlier.  Meaning, the current businesses needing a bailout need it because they are too big to fail and that the government should have come in and prevented them from ever being too big in the first place.

Tags: Current Events | Economy | Financial