Immediately after his inauguration as president in 1933, Franklin Roosevelt instituted a four-day bank holiday during which insolvent institutions were closed and the survivors were given a federal seal of approval. According to Italy's prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, the big economies are discussing a similarly drastic move, a closure of world markets, hopefully temporary. There's one big difference.

Roosevelt's emergency measure, which gradually restored confidence in the financial system, came after his rousing inaugural address in which he reassured Americans that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." (A clip is below.) By contrast, this international financial rescue plan has been leaked by the most corrupt and irresponsible leader in the Western world and is presumably to be discussed tomorrow by international finance ministers at a White House meeting hosted by a leader despised by foreign leaders even more than he is by the American public. But that isn't a constructive thought.