I'll leave it to others to explain why the Federal Reserve had to provide AIG with an $85 Billion loan and why the Treasury Department reversed course from it's supposedly firm decision the day before not to support a federally orchestrated bailout.  Everyone I talked to last night said there was no choice because of what the failure to act would do to the rest of the credit market.   Honestly, I don't know enough to be able to do anything but listen to others who I trust on this one.

But the number -- $85 billion -- is staggering to me, and I'm someone who uses multiple billion dollar numbers every hour of every day.  How big is $85 billion?

It's larger than the projected 2008 budgets of all but five federal agencies.

It's more than the 2008 budgets of the Departments of Energy and Education COMBINED.

It's twice what the Department of Homeland Security will spend this year.

As I said...staggering.

I first heard this story on the local Washington, D.C. news radio station on my way home from work on Friday.  But I just found the story that proves that what I thought I had misheard is, in fact, true.

Appellate Panel Bars Tests for Mad Cow Disease

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 30, 2008

A federal appeals court has ruled that the government can prohibit meat packers from testing their animals for mad cow disease. Because the Agriculture Department tests only a small percentage of cows for the deadly disease, a Kansas meatpacker, Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, wanted to test all of its cows, but the government says it cannot. Larger meat companies worry that if Creekstone is allowed to perform the test and advertise its meat as safe, they could be forced to do the expensive test, too. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said restricting the test was allowable.

Let me see if I have this right. 

Steve Forbes' Monday (3/17/08) morning interview on CNBC deserves comment because he recommended ignoring market valuations and urged federal intervention in currency markets that would cost U.S. taxpayers a lot of money.

Forbes recommended suspending the SEC's "mark to market" valuation rules for U.S. financial firms because many products, mortgage-backed securities in particular, are not trading now, or are trading a unusually low valuations. The rules allow the use of computer model valuations when there are no market prices, which Forbes also dismissed. This is unusual behavior for a staunch adherent of the "free market."

The irony is unmistakable and almost unbelievable.

As you watch and read the reports about what Wall Street people are saying the federal government should do to make the current economic situation better and avoid an even worse problem, you can't help but wonder what happened to their capitalist and free market credentials.  The same people who, when times are good, not-so-politely insist the government must have as small a role as possible in the economy and criticize those who dare suggest that legislation and regulation are necessary, are now demanding that Washington get heavily involved because things aren't going so well.

Steve Forbes, who usually routinely rails against Washington involvement in the economy, yesterday became the poster child for this view when, during an interview on CNBC, provided a laundry list of things the government needed to do immediately.

National Journal's CongressDaily reported today that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the supposed bastion of anti-regulation free market economic beliefs, today said a federal regulatory agency should deal with the tainted China imports problem. The key section: