I personally was a little relieved to hear your president speaking this morning. A trillion dollars does sound like a lot of money, and one wonders who’s going to buy all those bad mortgages from the government. Regarding the FDIC, I’m not convinced that his promise to pay will stick. My understanding (which was related to me by one of my brokers) is that the FDIC is not a government entity, as Mr Bush seemed to be saying, and that legally it is not even obliged to pay claims. Maybe what he was trying to say, is “Don’t worry folks, we’re here to save you all”. That it should have come to this for either the President, or candidates for that matter to officially recognize the severity publicly says a lot about how reactive as opposed to proactive the system is. Conspicuous by it’s absence was any reference to the need for a regulatory framework. This obviously would give Obama the ammunition he needs.