More finance questions than answers

One could surely be forgiven this week if he raised his hand and asked the government for clarification on its policy toward bailing out failing businesses. But one likewise shouldn't be too surprised if the answer is decidedly unclear.

Let's see: Bear Stearns gets a lifeline. Lehman Brothers is left to fail. A day after the government says it will no longer be in the business of rescuing financial companies from their bad decisions, AIG gets an emergency infusion of $85 billion.

What is the standard at play here? At best, it seems to be some inscrutable form of economic brinkmanship, in which that institution whose failure forebodes the broadest catastrophe gets attention.

By any measure, it is clear the government is making up the rules as it goes along - as perhaps it has no choice in such rapidly changing, unfamiliar territory.

Following the Bear Stearns bailout back in March, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said he was "convinced that (other unstable financial institutions are) going to come out of this situation very strong."

Following the events of this week, it seems reasonable to ask, "When?" But however reasonable the question, the answer is one of many that must simply be left for another day.

In the immediate aftermath of Tuesday's announcement, it seems clear that AIG could not be allowed to fail.

The repercussions would be both too vast and too unpredictable. But how can one not wonder who will be next? And just how much does the government have available to keep staving off business disasters?

Indeed, it's getting complicated just trying to keep track of what already is being shelled out. The famous quote attributed to Everett Dirksen is hauntingly appropriate: "A billion here, a billion there and pretty soon you're talking about some real money."

If anything is certain, it is that the astute-sounding pronouncements from the candidates who seek to be in charge of this mess are little short of laughable.

To hear them talk, one would think that both John McCain and Barack Obama could fix - or at least have prevented - this with a wave of some indefinite regulatory magic wand. Would that it were that simple.

If the candidates want to add something meaningful to the dialogue, they ought to come with much more specific ideas than we've heard so far.

The Bush administration may well not inspire confidence that the situation will be under control anytime soon, but it is an astounding oversimplification to suggest that the next administration, whoever heads it, will have answers readily at hand.

Whatever the solution, clearly, government must play some role in it. The AIG rescue does nothing if not emphasize that point.

The question crying out to be determined is what that role should be, and unfortunately, that appears to be something we'll have to sort out as we go along.