It seems I’ve touched a nerve.

Time magazine has again demonstrated its irrelevance in the Internet age with a fatuous feature called “25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis.”

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.

As I ponder the twin taxpayer shakedowns of the “stimulus” bill and “Son of TARP,” a couple of impertinent questions cross my mind.

Conventional wisdom says the Dow jumped nearly 3% Friday on the following perverse logic: Awful unemployment numbers would spur Congress to speed up passage of the “stimulus” bill, and happy days would soon be here again.

Time’s a-wastin’ for the new president if he has a prayer of staving off the appearance of a financial Black Swan during February.

The gold market was obviously open in the U.S. on Martin Luther King Day. But not much happened except a continuation of the decline that began at 11:00 a.m. in London on Monday…which lasted until 3:00 a.m. New York time yesterday…shortly before London opened on Tuesday morning. This decline managed to shave about $18 off the gold price during that period of time.

After a two-day “holiday” to start the week–Martin Luther King Day today (Monday) and Inauguration Day tomorrow (Tuesday)–it’ll be back to business on Wednesday as Congress begins to grill U.S. Treasury Secretary nominee Timothy Geithner – the appointment many observers believe to be the most important of the new Barack Obama administration.

“This program is intended to fundamentally and comprehensively address the root cause of our financial system’s stresses by removing distressed assets from the financial system.” Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson, October 2008.

The U.S. Treasury Department has done nothing to make sure $700 billion in taxpayer-provided bailout money is used to buttress the weak U.S. mortgage market, which was the catalyst for the growing global financial crisis, congressional watchdog Elizabeth Warren said Friday.