The news late Tuesday that Warren Buffett was buying $5 billion in Goldman Sachs preferred stock was hailed in some quarters as a sign of a market bottom. It’s certainly likely to send Goldman shares skyrocketing tomorrow (they were up 6.5% in after hours trading) and will probably help the overall stock market as well. [...]

As others have noted, one interestingly unexpected moment in today’s bailout hearings came when SEC Chairman Chris Cox mentioned the lack of any over-the-counter-derivatives regulation/oversight/disclosure as a possible cause of some of our current problems. OTC derivatives, such as the credit default swaps so much in the news lately, are contracts between financial institutions that [...]

David Cay Johnston thinks maybe we don’t need this bailout after all—and that journalists aren’t asking the right questions. That we’re at risk of “repeat[ing] the failed lapdog practices that so damaged our reputations in the rush to war in Iraq and the adoption of the Patriot Act.” On a web site of Harvard’s Neiman [...]

The majority of Americans say they favor a Wall Street bailout, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press has just reported. The question asked was: As you may know, the government is potentially investing billions to try and keep financial institutions and markets secure. Do you think this is the right thing [...]

Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke (and Chris Cox and James Lockhart, but do you think anybody really cares what they say?) are guests of the Senate Banking Committee this morning. Paulson’s opening statement is here. Bernanke’s is here. They contain nothing newsworthy. Committee Chairman Chris Dodd and ranking Republican Dick Shelby are being feistier in [...]