The IMF has warned of a possible global “meltdown” — and they’re not referring to global warming, they’re referring to the global economy. In the midst of this tragedy — and if the global economy does “melt down,” it will be an epic tragedy, with a high human cost among the most vulnerable people — in the midst of all this, there have been moments approaching comedy. Like this:

“Late on Friday, US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the US planned to invest directly in banks for the first since the 1930s, following a similar UK programme of partial bank nationalisation.” [BBC Web site, 11 October 2008]

Yes, the Republican advocates of small government are going to partially nationalize the U.S. banking industry. For years, political conservatives have joked that a conservative is a liberal who had been mugged; now the political liberals are joking that a liberal is a conservative who has money in a U.S. bank.