You say fiasco, I say opportunity.

Neither of the two problems currently hitting the US economy are unsolvable. The housing market is midway through its crisis already. It might not yet have hit bottom (I doubt it has, but we'll need a few more months of data to be sure), but we're seeing some indication that it is being resolved in the collapse of sellers' price resistance. You can't find the bottom until people start looking for it. I expect the May, 2009 housing outlook will be substantially different from now.

Oil is a bigger issue, but even there we're seeing some movement. Opinions about offshore drilling and nuclear power are sliding to the "favorable" end, and both would be welcome changes. The latter would enable more power at better prices and better efficiency (read: less pollution), and would shift US energy expenditures from the Middle East to Australia; that's a win for everyone who isn't a Saudi sheik or Hugo Chavez. The former guarantees increased oil supply, jobs and taxes while the other, larger correction happens.

I'm not sure if he really believes in discredited Keynesianist policies and more inflation, or if he's advocating them based on what his investment positions are.

I know this sounds painfully cynical, but I suspect the latter. I don't think there are any true Keynesians any more except maybe in the EU. Surely a man in his position knows that you can't spend your way out of a hole like we are falling into. If the 1970s taught us anything it should have been that.

{Insert amusing quotation here}