One of the follies of the Bush administration was the notion that the class of money-shufflers who got us into the credit crunch could somehow be trusted to get us out of it.  Which is what makes the Obama administration such a breath of fresh — oh, wait, never mind.

The $800 billion bailout, and billions more being pumped less obviously into the global economy, will cure nothing. Americans are clamoring for a savior. No one is willing to believe that the party is over. In the past, someone always came to our rescue.

Like many people, I have been looking at the price disparity between the market prices of gold and silver bullion (averaging about $1,000 an ounce for gold and $16.50 an ounce for silver) versus the prices of gold and silver futures (about $730 and $8.90 respectively).

The world’s banks and lenders have suffered losses of $2.8 trillion as a result of the credit crisis, according to the Bank of England. The British central bank is calling for “tougher regulation and constraints on lending,” according to The Guardian.

“The Master,” Alan Greenspan, yesterday admitted he made a “mistake.” We wonder if this is the first of such admissions from the former Fed head. Speaking to Congress, the one-time gold bug and Ayan Rand acolyte, said he had found “a flaw in the model” that he perceived “is the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works.”

In Far East trading on Tuesday morning, both silver and gold got sold off. The bottom was in shortly before London opened…and a spirited rally commenced until about 6:30 a.m. New York time when both metals got sold off again…with some help on the Comex open.

In this weekend’s Thoughts from the Frontlines, I quoted from part of a very thoughtful, right-on-target analysis by David A. Rosenberg entitled “The Elusive Bottom.” Over the weekend, I decided that you should read the whole piece, as Rosenberg makes some very solid points about how the markets and the economy may play out over the next few years.

All of this unemployment must be impacting demand for goods and services, which may be what prompted Jim Sinclair of jsmineset.com to ask a lot of questions, including ‘Do you really believe that present inflation is demand driven?’

It’s time to sell Russia. The end of the easy money era and the war in Georgia don’t, at first glance, seem to have an obvious connection. But they are linked. Bear with me, and I’ll explain why.

There is no end in sight for the housing market slump, says Alexander Green at InvestmentU.com.

The housing boom of the past few years was caused by cheap credit and tax breaks, not by sound fundamentals. Now, consumer confidence is low, credit is tight, and home inventories are piling up.

Alex says we will only reach the housing bottom when supply and demand come back into balance. And that is a long way off yet…