“Just look for the ones that are saying ‘no thanks’ to being run by Barney Frank.“

[Thursday morning update]

Related thoughts from Megan McArdle:

What to think of this? One’s first instinct is to say that this is an unalloyed good–the restrictions have made taking the funds costly enough that only truly troubled institutions will do so.

The problem is, that’s precisely what the Fed was trying to avoid. Central bankers have long made a practice of keeping it a secret who borrows from them at the discount window, because publishing the names of those who need a temporary cash infusion could trigger a bank run. In order to get the money into the banks that needed it to stave off a liquidity crisis, Bernanke and Paulson very deliberately asked banks that were widely believed to be sound to take the money too. Otherwise, the government bailout funds might have touched off the very crisis we were trying to avert.

It doesn’t do us much harm to put taxpayer funds into banks that don’t need it–we’re borrowing at low rates right now, and the banks that don’t need the money are the ones with very low default rates.

It’s also possible that some of the measures that express our collective rage at the bankers could tip the banks over the edge. It’s satisfying to make AIG cut out junkets for independent insurance agents, but it also probably means that fewer AIG policies will be sold. Since we now own the company, we probably cost ourselves money in order to express our outrage.

But it feels so good. And feelings, not thought, are what counts with the new regime.

[Bumped]

…to destroy the economy. There are a lot of other good suggestions in comments.

Seriously, if he really wanted to destroy the economy, what would he be doing differently?

[Update a few minutes later]

Now you own it, Mr. President:

The Dow Jones industrial average, actually, has reacted to Obama by plunging nearly 20 percent since he became president. That’s an obliteration of wealth that no stimulus bill will recoup. Since Election Day, the market has lost nearly 30 percent of its value—trillions of dollars, not from CEO bonuses, as you may have hoped, but from your 401(k) and the private sector.

“The stock market is sort of like a tracking poll in politics. It bobs up and down day to day, and if you spend all your time worrying about that, then you’re probably going to get the long-term strategy wrong,” Obama recently explained.

You know, Mr. President, not everything is like politics.

The market is a forward-looking entity, indeed, but it is driven by the decentralized actions of millions of investors every second. It’s the opposite of politics. And this setup surely offends the sensibilities of the statist planners occupying Washington. Unlike politicians, markets don’t lie. And this market has been in freefall for a year.

So, what to do? Obama, who promised not to raise taxes during a recession, now plans to raise nearly $1 trillion in new taxes directly from the investor class. He plans to raise capital gains taxes (a disincentive to investment), corporate taxes (for you, the consumer, ultimately to pay) and on the “rich” (which the nonpartisan Tax Foundation estimates will affect 1.3 million small-business owners).

This recession already has passed the 15-month threshold, the historical average for downturns. Most presidents helped ease us out of those tough spots by easing the burden on Americans. Obama has engaged in the opposite. That’s his gamble.

He forgot to mention the carbon tax, which will hit everyone, including the poor, in a quite regressive manner. I really am starting to think that Barack H. Obama stands for Barack Hoover Obama.

[Update a little before 2 PM Eastern]

Aunt Nancy says $1.6T isn’t enough.

These people bring to mind medieval doctors and leeches. Except they’re the leeches.

[Late afternoon update]

From Eric Cantor’s web site:

Just three weeks after President Obama signed his ‘stimulus’ bill into law, Congressional Democrats are already conceding that it will fail to achieve its objective. As the Speaker knows, the only reason to craft a second stimulus bill would be if the first one failed. Every Republican in the House voted against the first stimulus bill because we believed that Congress could do better, and we had a plan to achieve that goal. America does not need another massive spending bill, what we need is to create jobs.

Republicans developed an innovative plan to preserve, protect, and create twice as many jobs as the bill that Speaker Pelosi rushed to the floor last month. If Democrats believe that their stimulus bill has fallen short, then we should work together on the Republican Economic Recovery Act, which would revitalize struggling small businesses, help middle-class families, and immediately rekindle America’s economy and create jobs.

Don’t hold your breath.

Holman Jenkins explains:

Mark-to-market accounting is fine for disclosure purposes, because investors are not required to take actions based on it. It’s not so fine for regulatory purposes. It doesn’t just inform but can dictate actions that make no sense in the circumstances. Banks can be forced to raise capital when capital is unavailable or unduly expensive; regulators can be forced to treat banks as insolvent though their assets continue to perform.

What happens next is exactly what we’ve seen: Their share prices collapse; government feels obliged to inject taxpayer capital into banks simply to achieve an accounting effect, so banks can meet capital adequacy rules set by, um, government.

But wait! I thought that the problem was all of the (non-existent) “deregulation” and “tax cuts” of the Bush years!

It would help if we could get rid of, or at least reform Sarbanes-Oxley, too, but little hope of that with this gang in charge.

[Update mid afternoon]
Stop favoring the short sellers.

[Update a while later]

Michael Barone: “Ad hoc Fed, Treasury Actions Caused Crisis, Not Deregulation And Tax Cuts.”

Well, duhhh. But reality didn’t fit the Messiah’s message.

But don’t call it fascism.