Resolving the Financial Crisis - Step 2

Next month a new President will be elected, after which an utterly distrusted and discredited lame duck will sit in the White House until January while Congress goes on vacation and the President-elect cools his heels, taps his fingers, and watches the ship of state float rudderless in the storm. We of course have survived this ridiculously outdated set of rules for two centuries, despite the fact that newly elected presidents no longer travel to Washington on horseback. But the lame duck this time is probably as distrusted as any lame duck in U.S. history, and the coincidental timing of the crisis worse than ever before. It is not clear that we can afford to waste two months.