There is nearly universal agreement that the opening salvo of the Obama administration’s campaign to restore health to the financial system, delivered last week by new U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, fell with a loud and ugly thud. The most common criticism is that the announcement was short on detail.

Financial journalists, most of whom spend more time writing about derivatives than carburetors, have been scathing about the possibility of an auto industry bailout, even though they’ve happily accepted multiple bailouts for the financial sector.

Just because an economist or a central banker says something, it doesn’t make it so.

In much of the discussion about the collapse of the U.S. housing market, commentators have assumed that the massive run-up in property prices that preceded the subprime-mortgage meltdown were simply the result of a speculative frenzy that became a full-fledged market bubble.