With the footsteps of a new Treasury Secretary audible around the corner, Henry Paulson’s days running the country are essentially at an end. The best he can do now is delay whatever changes the Obama administration will make.
Looking back over the last two months, Paulson’s record (and that of the rest of the Bush administration) in combating the greatest financial crisis of our lifetimes is poor, though not catastrophic. The one thing that can be said in his favor is that the financial system did not completely collapse and Ben Bernanke’s supposed warning in the dark hours of September 18 that “we may not have an economy on Monday” did not come to pass. We have said on this site that stabilizing the financial system was job one, and the patient is stable.
The Baseline Scenario 