More than you probably want to know about the bailout

• While we were all googling Tina Fey yesterday, the Senate passed a revised bailout bill by an overwhelming 74-25 margin. Why the hell is the Senate proposing a monetary law of the sort which constitutionally can only begin in the House? I don't know - I must have missed that class in 4th grade. Anyway, the big difference between this one and what was snuffed Monday: $150 billion in tax cuts aimed at small businesses and the middle class, and a bump of FDIC insurance from $100k to $250k aimed at helping out small banks (and taking back whatever money the taxpayers just saved on a tax cut).
  
• In totally unrelated news, the national debt hit $10 trillion yesterday.
  
• The WSJ takes its best crack at supporting the bill, even starting with a quote from Alexander Hamilton. Which is a great way to convince me that this bill sucks, but at least the Journal brings some science as it turns out the manufacturing index plummetted in September almost to recession levels. If the BBC Newshour is to be believed, this is the real reason the bailout was "necessary." And I tend to trust BBC commentators because, after all, they tend to have English accents.
  
• David Ignatius at the Post points out that regular Americans have been just as spend-thrifty as Wall Street, if Debt vs. GDP is any measure.
• How did we get to this point in the first place? The Financial Times says the US have an Asian addiction, using Asian bank reserves "as an enchanted pool of money" that kept inflation artificially low while keeping growth artificially high. Or as Chinese professor Shen Dingli says, "More people understand that America is not as great as it was 10 years ago." I think that's a pretty good summary of the Bush administration.

In other news...

• Barack Obama referenced China's spacewalk last week in the debate which gives me at least some comfort that folks are paying attention to the narrowing technology gap. And now it's not just China, as Iran and Pakistan have joined the Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization as well. This, to put it mildly, bears monitoring.
• And lost in all the financial turmoil yesterday was a little bit of armageddon, as the Senate has approved civilian nuclear trade between the US and India. Which would be fine, except for two things: 1) India never signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, and 2) India and Pakistan were voted "most likely to irradiate each other" at this year's prom. And Pakistan is pissed. Jimmy Carter, in the International Herald-Tribune, rails against the deal.