Tim Geithner: Is second time the charm? (Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty)

The American public rightly is skeptical about the way the first $350 billion in Troubled Assets Relief Program funds were spent. Now comes the Obama administration with a new name for the…

AP Photo/Mark Lennihan

We now know — thanks to, among other things, the revelations of whistle-blowers whose warnings went unheeded — that the explosion in home mortgage defaults and the ongoing credit crisis might have been avoided if the Federal Reserve had…

Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg

So, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg wants Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat. Is she qualified? The New York Times takes a look at her resume. New York Daily News takes a look at her spirit. Is this the rebirth of the Kennedy dynasty? If…

Now comes the hard part. President-elect Barack Obama, having won a historic mandate for change, must make it happen.
He faces monumental problems: “Two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century,” as he put it in…

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday joined five other central banks across the world in slashing interest rates to try to head off a globe-spanning recession.
The joint move is unprecedented, particularly in that the Chinese Central Bank joined with the Fed, the…

Let’s grant that the precarious condition of the country’s financial system requires government intervention on a massive scale. The hands-off-business Bush administration has confessed as much, and no responsible observer claims otherwise - although there is considerable disagreement about the right…

The Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve rode to the rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over the weekend, promising to lend freely to the giant mortgage companies and provide capital if necessary.
The government’s goal was to fend off…

The latest economic headlines conjure up memories of Jimmy Carter in a sweater. Inflation is up. Gasoline prices are hitting records. The economy is sputtering. The ayatollahs are misbehaving. If you change the channel, you almost expect to see the Fonz.

For…

Credit cards may be the most competitive business in America. Anyone with decent credit — and a lot of people without it — finds his mailbox stuffed with come-ons touting “low introductory rates!” and “big rewards!”
That mailbox battle keeps prices…

It’s hard to think of $21 billion as pocket change. But as a fix for the subprime mortgage mess, $21 billion barely will buy a Band-Aid. Nevertheless, the Senate seems determined to push ahead with this “rescue lite” for struggling…

Here’s an advance look at one of the editorials that will appear in Tuesday’s Post-Dispatch and online at STLtoday.com/news/editorials.

MORE REGULATION, PLEASE 

In the middle of a grinding credit crunch, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Monday unveiled plans for a massive overhaul…

Did we say that the Fed’s rescue of Bear Stearns was a “limited bailout.” Yes, we did in an editorial March 18.

Oops. It seems the bailout is now looking bigger. The original plan called for Bear’s shareholder to get a…