In what's obviously a P.R. move, Citigroup says it's looking into pulling out of a $400 million marketing deal with the New York Mets.

Here's the current situation: Citigroup is supposedly on the hook to pay $400 million to the Mets for the naming rights to the unwarranted new stadium. Meanwhile, Citigroup, which has reported $28.5 billion in net losses since 2007, according to the Wall Street Journal, received a $45 billion bailout last fall from Henry Paulson's Wall Street giveaway TARP program.

Here's a better idea: Make the bank stay in the ill-fated scheme it can no longer afford, but force it pay the $400 million to the public — not the Mets — to help offset the billions in bailout money the public's already given the bank.

You're going to point out that the Mets would howl at having to give up that $400 million? Of course, but the team should have no reason to bitch. As my indefatigable stadium-expert colleague and Field of Schemes author Neil deMause pointed out January 14 on Runnin' Scared, the public's paying for $371.5 million of the new stadium.

So make the team give us back our money.

Of course, neither the team nor Citigroup will reimburse us. But it doesn't hurt to suggest it.

And don't think it's cynical to call this Citigroup maneuver to supposedly try to pull out of the naming deal a P.R. move. This morning's Journal story starts off with the idea that the bank is "eager to quell the controversy over how lenders are using government bailout money." The story adds:

Such liars the bank officials are. Technically they wouldn't be directly transferring TARP money to the Mets to pay for the stadium rights, but so what? Same public funds, different pocket.

Meanwhile, what a shrewd marketing move for the Mets: Name your team after the bank that's laying off thousands of people and getting bailed out by taxpayers who are so beleaguered that they can't even afford tickets to the games.

Speaking of naming rights that didn't cost us anything (at least for the names): Paulson's top aide at handing out the bailout money, Neel Kashkari, and the scamster named Bernie who made off with billions of other people's money.

If you don't want more bad news, then don't read about Henry Paulson's latest bailout plan to "help" consumers by luring them even deeper into debt in hopes that their overall debt payments will be more manageable. So what if your financial obligations stretch into the next century so your great-grandchildren will have to keep paying them down?

Spare yourself the agita: Don't compare Paulson's plan to the one announced yesterday in Britain that would boost taxes on the rich and on petrol and would provide more social services to help commoners survive the crisis.

Yes, Paulson plans for the government to soak up a lot of bad consumer debt. But his emphasis so far on his tardy bailout of average Joe the Plumbers is to convince us to buy even more cars and refinance our mortgages and wear out our credit cards — all that would generate millions in additional bank and broker fees that we would pay as a further bailout of Paulson's corporate pals.

Now about those fees: One of Barack Obama's key advisers, Austan Goolsbee, several years ago broke down the scam of fees during the Bush regime's push to privatize Social Security (think what a disaster that would have been to give Wall Street investment banks control of that cash and then see the Dow head down).

Of the fees that brokers could have gotten from us for "managing" our Social Security monies, Goolsbee termed the scheme "the largest windfall gain in American financial history."

See my January 2005 item "Going for Brokers" for details of that "individual accounts" trickery.

I noted Goolsbee's September 2004 analysis of the real scam behind the Bush/Cheney plan to privatize Social Security:

The way that McDonald's makes its real profits on soft drinks, fees are the real (and hidden) generator of profits for banks. Hence Wall Street's continued push to get consumers to spend and borrow — and borrow and spend.

So it's good news, amid some of the troubling selections by Obama for his new regime, that he's bringing Goolsbee to D.C. As Bloomberg notes this morning in a story about the appointment of former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker to head a panel that will, in effect, replace Paulson as the bailout czar:

Maybe this panel will do more than figure out ways to generate fees for bankers and brokers by trying to make average Americans borrow.

The British government proposes doing its own borrowing so it can increase social services. Here? The only services that people like Paulson want to protect is their car service.

While you're waiting to open the door of Paulson's limo for him ...

NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

Wall Street Journal: 'The Paulson Plan: "Truly Idiotic" '

N.Y. Daily News: 'Paulson unveils $800B plan to ease flow of credit to homebuyers and small consumers'

Wall Street Journal: 'Fed Aid Sets Off a Rush to Refinance'

Mother Jones: 'Drill, Garner, Drill: How former Iraq administrator Jay Garner is destabilizing the very country he was hired to fix'

Telegraph (U.K.): 'Relax — the recession will keep the lights on'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Even with LeBron James, fixing Knicks is a tall order'

AP: 'Gazans using tattered notes because of cash crunch'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Let my brother out, Mr. President!'

Wall Street Journal: 'Retail Downturn Rains on Macy's Parade: Department-Store Chain's CEO Says Size Lets it Strike New Deals, Cut Costs to Weather Sales Decline'

AP: 'Obama picks graybeards as wartime Cabinet'

Washington Post: 'Obama's Energy Department'

ABC: 'Obama on Auto Execs' Private Jets: "A Little Tone Deaf" '

Bloomberg: 'Fed Risks "Spitting in the Wind" With New $800 Billion Pledge'

ZDNet: '$873m judgment against spammer in Facebook case'

N.Y. Daily News: 'AIG bosses agree to Cuomo request and zap bonuses'

Windsor Star (Canada): 'Melting Arctic, Afghanistan top general's concerns'

You load 16 tons and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt. But the standard weights and measures are so out of whack that, in Britain, 20 billion of their pounds probably won't outweigh those 16 tons that Wall Street's bankers carelessly offloaded on us.

At least the Brits are trying, even though it means even more debt. Yes, there's big news from Parliament today: a $30 billion stimulus plan to bail out commoners. But you wouldn't know it by the U.S. press outlets, most of which grossly underplayed the Labor government's scheme announced by Chancellor Alistair Darling.

No Henry Paulson, he. In the slowest race on record, the British beat us to a bailout of ordinary folk from the crisis dumped on us by Wall Street's collapse (check out the Guardian's "Obama v Darling: the plans compared" video.)

Over here, Barack Obama won't even commit to rescinding George W. Bush's brazen tax cuts for the rich that his handlers enacted in the early daze of the current GOP regime.

And the American way, apparently, is to talk about helping "consumers" — that's how we suckers are viewed by Wall Street types like Paulson, according to our press (see the New York Post's "Paulson Works to Ease Consumer Credit Crunch.")

Paulson wants to help Detroit sell us even more vehicles. In Britain, the government at least pays lip service by often referring to us as "people," not "consumers."

OK, we're in transition and Obama hasn't even taken over yet. But over there, the Yanks aren't coming, so the Brits are robbing Peter the rich guy to pay Paul the plumber. The question is whether Obama is listening. Or is he listening to your pay-me-and-other-average-Americans-no-mind guys like Larry Summers?

So far, at least Obama's words are soothing — and we saw how important even words are when Rudy Giuliani was portrayed as keeping it cool right after 9/11. In "Team Obama promises huge jolt to economy," the Guardian's Ewen MacAskill writes:

Progressive or regressive, that's the question about our new regime, in light of the conservative Clintonian Democrats with whom Obama's surrounding himself.

In Britain, that question's been answered by the Labor government's plan (see the Guardian's glance). It calls for massive government borrowing, but it's a progressive agenda where the citizenry are concerned.

Gordon Brown and his henchman Darling laid out an attack that includes a tax hike for the richest 1 percent of Britons and a higher tax on gasoline. Plus an order to banks to delay foreclosures. Plus more help to homeowners in making mortgage payments. Plus an increase in child-care benefits. Plus £1.3 billion to help the unemployed. Plus a cut in the sales tax. Plus a vow to use government power to stop utilities from gouging their customers.

Plus higher taxes on such vices as national health insurance, alcohol, and tobacco (unfortunately, three things that are necessary for us to survive the onrushing Great '08 Depression). And this conscionable move, as the Washington Post's Kevin Sullivan reports in a story buried on page A8:

So far, we're talking about the opposite approach in Britain to the recession. Shoring up social services, a higher tax on the rich? Doesn't sound like corporate welfare to me. What's wrong with those people? What, is Sheila Bair running Britain's bailout?

The Labor government didn't announce its plan to a roomful of respectful reporters. Sitting only a few feet away from Darling and Brown, the Tories jeered them. (Don't you just love parliamentary democracy?)

More from the WashPost story:

Not much talk these days about who's at fault for this mess. (By the way, can we please put that old antisemitic canard about "international bankers" to rest? We didn't get into this mess because of them. The villains are Wall Street's bankers. Thank you.)

Now see this Oklahoman-American Jew's links to other news ...

NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

Washington Post: '$30 Billion Stimulus Announced In Britain: Plan Cuts Sales Tax, Boosts Borrowing for Major Public Projects'

Guardian (U.K.): 'Team Obama promises huge jolt to economy'

Wall Street Journal: 'Big Players Scale Back Charitable Donations'
"As the recession deepens, the future of charities that depend on corporate donations is becoming more uncertain."

N.Y. Post: 'It's About Time! Paulson Finally Makes Move to Help Consumers'

New Yorker: 'Thinking Big: The promise of universal health care' (Steve Coll)

Guardian (U.K.): 'US intelligence "kept files on Tony Blair's private life", claims ex-US navy operator'

Wall Street Journal: 'Chrysler Workers Fret Buyout Deadline'
"Chrysler workers are torn between accepting a buyout now or hoping to survive involuntary separations expected at year's end."

N.Y. Times: 'Economic Slump May Limit Moves on Clean Energy'
"A poor global economy and plunging prices for coal and oil are upending plans to curb the use of fossil fuels."

N.Y. Daily News: 'Cops nab man who drove 3,000 miles to shoot wife in church'

N.Y. Times: 'Saving Citi May Create More Fear'
"The government's bailout of Citigroup could lead other banks to take bigger risks."

Irish Times: 'Democratic triumph heralds realignment in US politics'

N.Y. Times: 'For Lobbyists, No Downturn, Just a Turnover'
"Republican lobbyists are feeling the demand for their services plummet as Democrats ascend in Washington."

N.Y. Daily News: 'Teacher and her pet'
"A Queens teacher, 37, fired for bedding a 17-year-old male model is suing to win back her job. He was no student, she says."

Oh, this is good news: Bloomberg's story this morning "Geithner Nomination Takes Top Fed Wall Street Liaison" makes it sound as if Tim Geithner is the only guy in the country who can save the country:

"The appointment of Timothy Geithner as U.S. Treasury secretary would deprive Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke of his top troubleshooter on Wall Street, compelling the Fed chief to act fast to find a replacement. Geithner's departure would mean the loss of the Fed executive Bernanke has relied on most to keep the financial system from collapsing in this year's credit crisis."

First of all, who says Bernanke has kept the financial system from collapsing? Secondly, it simply isn't true that Geithner's the only sharp knife in the drawer. As I re-iterated early this morning: What's wrong with Sheila Bair?

She's a Republican, thus fulfilling Obama's quota. She's smart, she's already the FDIC chief so she's experienced, and she has shown more compassion and common sense than has Paulson, with whom she has clashed.

How many times to I have to iterate what she said more than a month ago, back when Paulson and Congress were figuring how much of your money they were going to spend to bail out Wall Street? Here are, once again, her words:

"Why there's been such a political focus on making sure we're not unduly helping borrowers but then we're providing all this massive assistance at the institutional level, I don't understand it. It's been a frustration for me."

Fearing Detroit's auto-destruction, Henry Paulson has decreed a bailout of automakers.

For details of this smokin' deal, see the Wall Street Journal's 'U.S. Auto Makers Look to Federal Sales Incentives'

That's the automakers' reward for having spent the past 50 years refusing to produce electric cars and other energy-saving modes of transportation and lobbying aggressively against energy-saving and convenient mass-transit systems.

Good news for me, though: Paulson's also going to bail out my bank.

Best headline today: 'Citi Dump: Feds, Bank Giant in $1.2 Trillion "Toxic" Rescue'

Best bailout today: The Detroit Rescue, which is a landmark event in the history of U.S. capitalism: the end of the free-market system and the start of a full-blown free-marketing system.

At first blush, these steps may seem insane. A bank will be created to manage Citibank's "toxic" assets — the ones that Citi's executives worked so hard to acquire but which now are threatening their empire.

As for Detroit, auto sales are down, so the federal government is actually going to subsidize the automakers' attempts to sell us more cars.

Does this mean even more TV ads bombarding us with news of vehicle "sales events"? (Adding to our irritation, the ads continue to say "sales events" or just plain "events," instead of simply calling them "sales." Hey, everybody, it's an "event"! Let's all go to the "event"!)

Oh, the weather outside is frightful, but the fire sales are so delightful. So let there be snow jobs.

These new twists to corporate welfare could be considered reckless driving leading perhaps to vehicular suicide, but only if you think that Paulson and the bailout crew really know what they're doing instead of just scrambling to get the money flowing on Wall Street.

The bankers and their lawyers know full well how they made their billions of dollars: by setting up credit-default swaps and clever trading instruments based on shaky mortgage deals. So why don't they know how to manufacture the proper antidote for themselves (and the global economy and, lastly, us)?

Think of the Street's bankers and lawyers as kids sweltering on high sidewalks and then the federal government comes in and turns on the fireplugs' faucets, flooding the place with gushes of cool, cool water.

Whee!

Meanwhile, start thinking about what it would take to put you and your family in that brand-new vehicle you can't afford because we're in a recession.

Here's a tip: Don't pay extra for the "undercoating." You've already paid dearly for it. In the past 60 years, the federal government has built for the automakers the Interstate Highway System and at the same time refused similar help to the railroads, thus letting rail passenger service wither away. And of course, the feds heavily subsidized airports and other infrastructure for airlines while letting inner-city train stations decay.

What's next? Henry Paulson's going to spend the money to raise Eastern Air Lines from the dead?

In other rescue news, Barack Obama's team is working hard to help Hillary Clinton overcome her election embarrassment.

Eerie parallel to Wall Street's meltdown: Wasn't it Obama who caused Hillary's meltdown? And now he's bailing her out?

On Wall Street, the bankers melted down the economy, and Paulson, the ex-CEO of Goldman Sachs and thus one of the most powerful Wall Street bankers, is spending billions of your money to rescue them.

(Rant continues here.)

The bailouts are spreading like a fungus. Not that bailouts aren't needed. But when exactly is the federal government's infectious enthusiasm to help our corporate citizens going to reach the country's human citizens?

Or at the very least, when is the federal government going to start bailing out the state and city governments that are having to slash their budgets — which means sacrificing the already underfunded social programs that promote the general welfare throughout the country?

If it pursues its present course, the federal government will eventually have to at least start setting up bread lines. Otherwise we'll all be too weak to go further into debt to buy those overpriced, gas-guzzling Detroit cars.

Here's an idea: Start directly saving the workers who build those cars by helping them restructure their mortgages and by making sure that vital social services for them and other ordinary Americans aren't cut. Do what the FDIC's Susan Bair suggests and attack the problem of getting the money flowing by starting at the bottom and working your way up, instead of starting at the top and letting these schemes trickle down — if they trickle down to us at all.

While you're waiting for the government's rescue engine to warm up . . .

NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

Bloomberg: 'U.S. Stock Futures Climb as Citigroup Rallies 41 Percent; Exxon Falls'

Salon: 'Barack Obama, honeymoon killer?'
"The Clintonites in his Cabinet, forgiveness for Lieberman, the creeping signs of centrism -- progressives aren't ready to panic, yet."

Wall Street Journal: 'U.S. Agrees to Rescue Struggling Citigroup'

Times (U.K.): 'Thirteen burned alive in Baghdad bus bomb'

Times (U.K.): 'Huang Guangyu, China's richest man, disappears amid corruption investigation'

Salon: 'Barack Obama wants you (to spill your secrets)'
"Prospective White House employees must cough up an unprecedented amount of detail about their online activity. Is the new administration being smart -- or scary?"

Scoop (New Zealand): 'Environmental Risk Management Authority Warned Over Inadequate Monitoring GE Animals'

Wall Street Journal: 'Anatomy of the Morgan Stanley Panic'
"Trading Records Tell Tale of How Rivals' Bearish Bets Pounded Stock in September."

Wall Street Journal: 'Scowcroft Protégés on Obama's Radar'

Wall Street Journal: 'U.S. Auto Makers Look to Federal Sales Incentives'

N.Y. Post: 'Citi Dump: Feds, Bank Giant in $1.2 Trillion "Toxic" Rescue'
"The feds late last night announced an unprecedented plan to rescue Citigroup by taking a $20 billion stake in the desperately troubled . . ."

Newsday: 'Gunman in NJ church kills his wife, wounds 2 others'

Times (U.K.): 'Gordon Brown defends plans to tax the rich'

N.Y. Post: 'HILLARY NOMINATION WOULD BE AN OBAMA-NATION' (Dick Morris)

Salon: 'Progressive complaints about Obama's appointments' (Glenn Greenwald)

N.Y. Times: 'Radio Host Has Drug Company Ties'

(Full disclosure: Daily doses of Lamictal are to blame for enabling me to write this column. If I had received $329,000 from the drug's manufacturer, I wouldn't have needed the drug.)

Because my money's in Citibank, which is now on the verge of going under, I feel like going down there and joining the panicky crowd to demand my money back.

I'll yell and shake my fist and insist on an explanation why my bank is going down the tubes despite the fees I pay for everything. And the ATM will just stare back at me, like HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

There is no George Bailey reminding me how my bank deserves my trust.

There's only Henry Paulson — who gave Citibank $25 billion in bailout money before the bank's current crisis — telling me and everyone else who's not a Wall Street big cigar, "Tough luck."

It's not a wonderful life. And I'm not Saudi Prince Alwaleed.

And the U.S. is not No. 1 — at least for much longer.

For the latest details on how the U.S. meltdown is, like, bumming out the world, see this morning's Washington Post story "Financial System Suffers Relapse: Shattering Lull, Fears of Deep Recession Roil Markets."

The one place where commerce is on the upswing is on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, where Henry Waxman upended longtime chairman John Dingell. See my item yesterday, and read this morning's WashPost perspective-filled story, in which Paul Kane writes:

This is the first big muscle-flexing by the Obama team — it shows that he has the power to keep his fellow Democrats on Capitol Hill in line. There's no doubt it signals real change and reform, because that's Waxman's history. But does the Waxman victory really signal Barack Obama's environmentalism or is it payback?

During the Democratic primary, Dingell cast his lot with Hillary Clinton, while his superdelegate wife, GM lobbyist Debbie Dingell, supported Obama.

Who did Waxman cast his lot with? As the Australian outlet ABC pointed out in June, in an extensive interview with Waxman on its Lateline show:

Not speaking of real reform, the Washington Post reports this morning in an oh-by-the-way fashion:

Guess Obama just can't resist leftovers.

If your hopes of "change" were high, that news is the stuff of deflation.

And speaking of throwing away hard-earned capital: While you ponder how safe my money — and I suppose yours, too, if you want to be selfish about it — is in Saudibank (er, Citibank) . . .

NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

N.Y. Post: 'STRAPHANGERS IN FOR A BUMPY RIDE: 'SEVERE' FARE HIKES, SERVICE CUTS SET. ONLY A BAILOUT CAN SPARE US: MTA.'

Times (U.K.): 'Recession stalks the world's economies'

hecklerspray.com: 'Remember The Spitzer Whore? What Does She Think About Stuff?'

ABC (Australia): 'Henry Waxman joins Lateline'

Washington Post: 'Kafka of the Cubicle: Japanese Cartoonist Chronicles the Indignities Endured by Young, Dutiful, Sad Office Drones'

N.Y. Post: 'TEENS' HATE SPREE LED TO MURDER: DA'

Times (U.K.): 'Citigroup meets to consider rescue options'

BBC: 'US global dominance "set to wane" '

Washington Post: 'Obama Team Springs Leaks'

Reuters: 'Thousands protest in Iraq against U.S. troops pact'

Washington Post: 'Video Game Technology Gives Veterans New Lease on Life'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Queens jail guards face assault rap'

Washington Post: 'Falling Prices Raise a New Fear: Deflation'

Slate: 'Obama's White House, Clinton's Team: Who's (loyal to) who in the Obama administration — an interactive chart'

Slate: 'How To Read the Quran: A new translation captures the confusion'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Inspector in crane disaster snubs deal'

The Daily Flog: Bailing on the bailout; chips take dip; we're running low on spam.

You can't blame reporters for not getting the scoop on bailout czar Henry Paulson's latest moves.

Paulson himself doesn't know from one minute to the next. We know it's a crisis, but is he reacting quickly to changing events or is he just panicky and scrambling?

The vaunted Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) — the bailout that Congress wrestled with and finally approved — is now more trouble than it's worth, as the New York Times and others report.

Paulson says the government won't go ahead as planned with the key bailout provisions that Congress approved: the purchase of Wall Street firms' junk assets.

So, the plan for spending the $700 billion is scrapped. But Paulson's going to put that money somewhere. And he's the appointee of one of America's most all-time unpopular presidents (recent polls say that).

We just had a monumental election, but right in the middle of this miserable reign delay, Paulson's rolling back the TARP. Who's on first?

It's not just Paulson. These days, any good news is accompanied by sour news, no matter what sector you're talking about. Example: There's a sharp decrease in junk mail since a major spam gang was captured, the BBC reports. At the same time, however, Intel, the world's largest chipmaker, further shook Wall Street with news that revenue (because of less demand for chips worldwide) is sharply down.

Never in the past 60 years have Americans had less confidence in a president, according to surveys, yet it's Bush's guy who is making moves — or not making moves — right and left.

This is the lame-duckiest of all lame-duck presidential situations. And we have two more months of Paulson trying to figure out how to bail out his Wall Street pals.

So ignore the grossly misleading headline on the main Times story this morning: "U.S. Shifts Focus in Credit Bailout to the Consumer."

It's not the "consumer" but the credit card companies and the like that would get direct boosts, in hopes of prying money loose from private investors to get the credit markets rolling again.

Any sympathy you might feel for Paulson's task is tempered by the fact that it was he and his fellow investment bankers whose bad decisions got the financial world into this mess in the first place.

One thing Paulson is absolutely sure about: The time's still not right for average Americans to be bailed out, despite the tone of the Times headline. As the Times notes in the last half — the meatiest half — of its story this morning:

While he flails around looking for ways to spend $700 billion on everyone but you . . .

NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

McClatchy: 'Blackwater likely to be fined millions in Iraq weapons case'

AP: 'Gay activists rally outside Mormon temple in NYC'

Bloomberg: 'German Economy Enters Worst Recession in 12 Years'

Guardian (U.K.): 'Germany slides into recession'

Guardian (U.K.): 'Obama's message to the world: we will act quickly on climate change'

China Media Project (Hong Kong): ' "Guilt by blog" and the trouble with China’s universities'

Guardian (U.K.): 'Murder charge after woman dies at Ku Klux Klan-style initiation'

Register (U.K.): 'Batman sues Batman over Batman'

Guardian (U.K.): 'Half-white is an insult: The debate over how black Obama is obscures the racial reconciliation his election represents'

Guardian (U.K.): 'Paulson abandons plans to buy up America's toxic mortgage assets'

L.A. Times: 'Angrier response to Prop. 8 steps up'

Time: 'The Obama Transition: What Will Change Look Like'

N.Y. Times: 'U.S. Shifts Focus in Credit Bailout to the Consumer'

L.A. Times: 'Congress isn't waiting for Obama'
"Lawmakers are unveiling plans to expand health coverage and curb global warming. And Democratic leaders have called a lame-duck session next week to discuss an auto industry bailout."

The Age (Australia): 'G20 leaders must wait for Obama meeting'

L.A. Times: 'Suicide bomber hits American military convoy in Afghanistan'

Bloomberg: 'Asian Stocks Tumble, Extend Global Rout, on U.S. Treasury Shift'

BBC: 'Spam plummets as gang leaves net'

N.Y. Post: 'PAULA FANATIC SUIC"IDOL": OBSESSED SHOW REJECT KILLS HERSELF OUTSIDE ABDUL'S LA MANSION'

Scotsman (U.K.): 'Happy birthday, Nessie – the legend lives on'

Register (U.K.): 'DHS robotic airport missile-patrol plan to be shelved: Droid dazzler overwatch ploy too pricey'

N.Y. Times: 'Bush, Out of Office, Could Oppose Inquiries'

Register (U.K.): 'GooFlu searches for sickness: Google tells you when to get sick'

BBC: 'Colombians riot over pyramid scam'

Register (U.K.): 'Mankind to detect alien life "by 2025" '

China Media Project (Hong Kong): 'Taxi strikes in China highlight changing press controls'

This is how bad the economy is: The government is finally thinking about bailing out U.S. homeowners.

Faced with a global recession of Wall Street's own making, bankers are so desperate that even Mr. Potter is putting on a smiley face.

Even worse for them, this sudden benevolence (or least the mere thought of it) is sweeping across the globe ("West Is in Talks on Credit to Aid Poorer Nations," New York Times).

You don't have to be a Marxist, or even a respectful critic of some of Wall Street's practices, to see that this new plan to help the little guy in the U.S. make his mortgage payment — to not foreclose on his house and not flip it for even more profit — is the bankers' absolutely last option.

The only options Wall Street execs usually spend time on are the bundles of stock they hand out to one another.

Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, for instance, didn't leave his job as Goldman Sachs CEO for public service until he got $110 million just for stock options and restricted stock the company had given him. (That doesn't count his bonuses, etc.)

Paulson bailed, then he bailed out his Wall Street pals, now he has to finally start bailing us out. As the Washington Post reports this morning, in "Treasury Considers Backing Mortgages":

This follows yesterday's shocker of Alan Greenspan admitting that some regulation of Wall Street may be necessary ("Greenspan deregulated," Press Clips).

The plans to bail out the proles aren't a complete surprise. It does mean that Bair has won her argument with Paulson.

The two have been at loggerheads since the beginning of the meltdown crisis. I noted October 16:

Remember what she said back then?

Wall Street's bankers haven't cared much about the mortgages themselves; they've focused on bundling them into securities off which they've made astounding profits.

Now they finally have to roll up their sleeves, go down to the basement, and start shoring up the foundation — the little people strapped with big mortgages, many of those mortgages the result of the bankers' predatory lending practices.

While they start digging us out . . .

NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

Washington Post: 'World Markets Sink; OPEC Slashing Output'

Wall Street Journal: 'Europe Sinks; London Falls 8.7 Percent'

Wall Street Journal: 'Asia Tumbles; Nikkei Loses 9.6 Percent'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Brooklyn man accuses 5 cops of sodomy attack in subway; district attorney launches investigation'

McClatchy: 'New polls paint bleak battleground map for McCain campaign'

N.Y. Times: 'In McCain’s Uphill Battle, Winning Is an Option'

Slate: 'McCain's Hero: More Socialist Than Obama!'

Slate: 'Stolen Elections -- as American as Apple Pie' (Jack Shafer)

Salon: 'Another election nightmare in Florida?'

Village Voice: 'Angry Crowd, Bloggers Yell at Bloomberg Over Term Limits' (Roy Edroso)

N.Y. Times: 'Council Backs Bloomberg Bid to Run Again'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Sarah Palin wig a top seller in Brooklyn'

Slate: 'Attack of the Cell-Phone Zombies!'

McClatchy: 'EPA weakens new lead rule after White House objects'

CNET: 'Time to patch Windows again'

Gawker: 'Scott McClellan Endorses Obama'

N.Y. Times: 'Bomber Kills 11 in Attack on Iraqi Official'

N.Y. Times: 'Half of Doctors Routinely Prescribe Placebos'

Gawker: 'NYT Co. May Be Downgraded To Junk'

Slate: 'Hot Document: Obama Through British Eyes'

L.A. Times: 'Countrywide plan may cut mortgage rates for 395,000 borrowers'

Washington Post: 'Newest Source of Teen Ire: Webcams in Their Cars'

Washington Post: 'Credit Crisis May Force Metro to Pay Millions'

McClatchy: 'In hard times, some raid their closets in hopes of raising cash'

Still no word on whether Equatorial Guinea's dictator, Teodoro Obiang, is alive or dead.

Last week, it seemed that one of the world's most notorious despots — also a valued customer of the Bush-connected Riggs Bank in D.C. — was finally dead.

This story in Kenya's Daily Nation immediately surfaced: "Equatorial Guinea president denies rumours of his death."

Classic.

But that story was based on the word of the dictator's aides. And some of Obiang's aides have been known to torture prisoners with stinging ants, so, you know, not everybody on his staff might be trustworthy.

The president himself has still not surfaced.

Unlike on Wall Street, where millions of dead presidents have surfaced — stuffed into the pockets of the bankers who sparked the financial meltdown.

Today's Wall Street Journal points out that Merrill Lynch's "head of strategy," Peter Kraus, is leaving after less than two months on the job with a "buyout bonanza" of at least $10 million — and maybe $25 million — in his pocket.

When melting-down Merrill was swallowed up by Bank of America, thousands of Merrill workers were sure to be fired. But a clause in Kraus's contract kicked in. The WSJ story notes:

Many other Wall Street execs have buyout clauses that kick in when control of the companies they work for changes hands. So Kraus won't be the only one walking away with all those dead presidents.

We can only hope that Kraus is not going into "public service." Not that he wouldn't make out like a bandit if he chose to.

When Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson quit in 2006 to become Treasury Secretary, he had to rid himself of his Goldman stock. After negotiating with his own company on a settlement, he walked away with a cool $110 million for his shares and options — don't think for one second that Paulson had spent much to obtain those shares; like other Wall Street execs, he got most of them just handed to him.

That deal gave him the experience he needed to figure out how to curb executive compensation during the bailout.