The Dow roared back yesterday. It ended the day up 379 points. Gold fell $22 – to end the day below $900.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is taking his sweet time to work out the details of TARP II.  But for all the uncertainty surrounding his plans, we know one thing:  Zombie banks will not be allowed to go under.

Conventional wisdom has it this morning that stocks are at the start of a rebound.  And for all I know, that’s true; technician types say the market is way oversold.

Dirty, Rotten Scoundrels. The world is full of them.

“Negative growth,” says newspapers.

Sweden to GM/Saab: Drop Dead!

Investors are “bloodied and confused,” says Warren Buffett, “much as though they were small birds that had strayed into a badminton game…”

It seems I’ve touched a nerve.

Benn Steil, who is on the Council of Foreign Relations and an editor of an economics journal, is writing in the Financial Times, see, and his essay has the catchy headline “Keynes and the Triumph of Hope over Economics”, which is so terrifically profound and funny at the same time that I laughed out loud, which was unfortunate, as I had just taken a big bite of a yummy chilidog and it sprayed all over the place as a result of my mighty guffaw.

When Bob Woodward slaps together his next instant-history book about the Panic of ‘08 (c’mon, you just know he’s going to), I imagine the book will open with the events of September 18-19, 2008.