Noam excerpted a passage from today's Times indicating that support is snowballing for bank nationalization. To underscore that reality I submit this bit from the Economist's current lead editorial:
As a capitalist newspaper, we reject a deliberate policy of wholesale nationalisation. To be sure, state ownership may make some sense as a tactic for specific financial institutions. We argued for it with both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the United States and with Northern Rock in Britain long before politicians in either country succumbed to the inevitable. Like it or not, it may be the least bad option in many cases ahead.
Granted, that's hardly a full-throated cry--and the piece goes on to list various caveats and qualifications. But it's striking that even the free-marketeers at the Economist are grudgingly entertaining the notion.
--Michael Crowley