Depression 2.0--Lame Duck Stimulus Lamed

There is little chance that the lame duck session of Congress will initiate an economic stimulus package (or bail out Detroit):

Congressional Democrats are scaling back plans for an economic-stimulus package as partisan deadlock clouds chances for passage of either that measure or a proposed bailout of Detroit's auto makers until the party's enlarged majority convenes in January.

Democratic leaders want to move legislation that would give a jobs-producing jolt to the economy. They also support proposals to toss a $25 billion financial lifeline to Detroit. But it isn't clear either of those steps can pass before January, when President-elect Barack Obama and a new, more heavily Democratic Congress take office.

The biggest problem is in the Senate, where Democrats have only a 51-49 edge until year's end. The Bush administration is balking at the Democratic agenda, and Republicans in the House and Senate are growing more vocal about their concerns, especially concerning the auto package.

Waiting for Obama, I suppose. Hopefully it will be more rewarding than waiting for Godot. Sorry, couldn't resist.

And apparently, the whole ennui thing about waiting for Obama afflicts the world economic summit in DC:

WASHINGTON — World leaders converging here this weekend will try to reverse the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, amid a change in the White House that leaves a key player on the sidelines.

The agenda for the meeting of 20 top economies — among the most important summits of its kind since World War II — includes discussions of how to stimulate the slumping economy, impose more government control over lending and create more transparency within financial markets.

Missing from the talks will be President-elect Barack Obama, who will assume a leading role in helping to solve these issues when he takes office. He declined to participate because President Bush, the man he will succeed, is the summit's official host. Obama has been wary of projecting presidential authority before his inauguration.

All talk, no action: an ambitious sounding agenda, with no binding agreement expected:

No dramatic action is expected. Participants such as British Prime Minister Gordon Brown call the summit an important step that could lead to revised missions for key institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Both were created after the last financial summit of this kind, the 1944 conference at Bretton Woods, N.H.

Despite the expected agenda calling for discussions of regulating financial markets, President George W. Bush continues to parrot his free market fundamentalist rhetoric:

Bush set the tone for the summit, calling on world leaders not to "reinvent" the free-market system.

"Our aim should not be more government," Bush said in a speech on Wall Street. "It should be smarter government."