The Dow is up 490 points, the price of oil is down below $100, and the dollar is strengthening. Yep, things sure are falling apart. The amazing thing is that the performance on the stock market today is being attributed to talk of a new bailout deal. Gee, it couldn’t possibly be that on sober reflection there’s some relief that the old deal failed, could it? Or maybe a sense that the Bush/Paulson scare mongering is just that? Time is on the side of freedom. The politicians know that they have to “fix” this thing before it fixes itself and they end up with egg on their face.