Economy you can bank on

The US Treasury Department is now thinking about using some of the $700 billion it has been given to rescue Wall Street to buy ownership stakes in American banks. The idea is that banking is so central to the US economy that the government is justified in virtually nationalizing much of the industry in order to save us from a potential depression.

There are two faulty assumptions here. First, saving the US' banks won't save the economy. And second, the economy doesn't really need saving. It's stronger than we think.

Bear with me. I know that everyone has been saying for a couple of weeks that something has to be done; a banking crisis could quickly become a wider crisis, pulling the rest of us down. For this reason, the Wall Street bailout is supposed to be better than no plan at all.