Tentative Praise for Obama

Obama appears to be moving towards the "Swedish" model in response to the banking crisis - nationalize the banks, wipe out the shareholders, write down the crappy assets and then relaunch.

If he goes this route, I will be very impressed and will be the first to praise him.  He understands that we need to take the pain on these banks.  Equity holders should be wiped out.  That's the risk of equity and these banks are insolvent.  Debtholders should be crammed down.  That's the risk of debt.  Above all, the government must stop feeding capital into these banks piecemeal.  

Good for him.  He seems to recognize the nightmare that Japan created by propping up banks that were effectively dead.

This makes his approach to the stimulus package even more bizarre.  Japan, which just announced a massive drop in GDP, is the poster child for government "stimulus" spending that achieved nothing.  I just wish he had taken that lesson to heart as well.