Flutterby™! : More economic bitching

Many of you have probably seen this astonishing admission of incompetence:

"It's not based on any particular data point," a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. "We just wanted to choose a really large number."

Nonelvis points out that this is coming from a representative of a government department tasked with:

...managing the U.S. Government's finances effectively, promoting economic growth and stability, and ensuring the safety, soundness, and security of the U.S. and international financial systems.

and yet they're admitting that they're pulling numbers out of their collective asses and are throwing oatmeal against the wall to see if it sticks. Luckily, there are people paying attention, Martin Wolf points out that Paulson's plan is not a solution to the crisis.

Meanwhile, "The best-performing hedge fund manager of the past two years has closed down his funds and is returning money to investors after concluding that the danger of losing money from a bank collapse is too high." If you're a good money manager, this is what you do.