Events are moving so fast these days that a long post on a particular aspect of the current credit market collapse and the Paulson plan could easily be out of date before it was finished.  So here, in no particular order, are a few quick hits to stimulate your taste buds.  Think of  them as financial finger food, credit market crudite, tax tidbits, and budget bonbons.

1.  I can't help but think that the Bush administration is paying the price for the weak economic team it had in place through much of its tenure and its unwillingness or inability to establish its economic credentials while it has been in office.  The two first Bush Treasury secretaries -- Paul O'Neil and John Snow -- were ineffective administrators, communicators, and policymakers.  The first was fired; the second was almost laughed out of Washington.  No one else in the Bush administration, including the president, had any credibility on economic issues until Paulson arrived.

2.  Paulson's credibility is limited.  Yes, he has extraordinary experience on Wall Street.  But even with that experience, it took him months to come to the conclusion that the one-on-one solutions he was suggesting were not (and perhaps could not) working and that something far more comprehensive was needed.

3.  Paulson has not risen to the stature of Bob Rubin who, as Treasury secretary, could make a one-line statement ("We believe in a strong dollar.") that would immediately calm the markets.

4.  The real political ppportunity for both of the presidential candidates is to address the concerns not of Wall Street types but of individuals.  As I travel around the country, the one thing I keep hearing most often is from individuals who now don't think they'll be able to retire any time close to when they had hoped.

5.  The savings and loan baliout may not be the right model to use when trying to understand what Paulson is proposing.  The better example may be the federal government's takeover of the passenger railroads in 1970.  The government purchased the assets and supposedly was going to be able to run the new Amtrak system profitably so that taxpayers would make money on the purchase.  That has never happened.

6.  It's hard not to wonder how different this situation would have been had the national debt that Bill Clinton and George W. Bush promised to eliminate by the end of this decade (that is, next year) actually been eliminated. Had that happened, a $700 billion increase in the national debt would have been meaningless and probably welcomed by the bond market.

7.  Social Security privatization is now dead for at least a decade.  The Republican Party likely would have been destroyed at this election had it been enacted earlier as the Bush administration wanted.

8.  Immediately after the plan was anounced, commentators were saying that there wasn't enough time for Congress to act before it recessed.  That was always laughable.  Congress was never going to leave Washington without acting on the plan and was always going to delay its recess.

9.  Democrats in Congress are very likely to succeed at adding several provisions to the Paulson plan such as limiting golden parachutes and the government getting an equity stake or warrants when it buys the bad loans from a company.  House and Senate Republicans can't oppose these.