I've started giving serious thought to the high likelihood that Barack Obama is about to inherit this mess.

On a separate but obviously related front it's distressing that a lot of very respectable economists think that Henry Paulson is dragging his feet -- the G7 and IMF meetings seemed to produce statements of unity and purpose, but no real action.

Finally, yes, it seems to be unquestionably good news that Paulson has jettisoned his first idea (government purchase of 'toxic' mortgage debt) in favor of British/Swedish model partial government purchase of major banks. But the fact that he rammed through his bailout bill as absolutely essential to saving the economy, only to decide a few days later that we need something dramatically different, does not inspire me with great confidence in his grasp of the nature of the crisis.

Late Update: This passage, which Atrios picked out of the current Times article, gets right at what's so unsettling ...

Two weeks after persuading Congress to let it spend $700 billion to buy distressed securities tied to mortgages, the Bush administration has put that idea aside in favor of a new approach that would have the government inject capital directly into the nation's banks -- in effect, partially nationalizing the industry.

As recently as Sept. 23, senior officials had publicly derided proposals by Democrats to have the government take ownership stakes in banks.

The Treasury Department's surprising turnaround on the issue of buying stock in banks, which has now become its primary focus, has raised questions about whether the administration squandered valuable time in trying to sell Congress on a plan that officials had failed to think through in advance.