Think Obama Can Take Advice?

Ritholtz is an equal-opportunity critic--if you read his stuff, you know that.

Here he gives a freebie piece of advice to Obama.

The bank stress tests will be out in days, and the need for private capital will be a turning point. Rumors that Citibank needs $10B and Bank of America needs $60B are circulating. The public has been infuriated at all the monies going to the banks, but they still mostly blame W. If the post panic Obama admin wants to make a break from those policies, forcing the banks to raise private capital or go into FDIC liquidation is the way to do that.

Or,they can continue the Bush policies — a surefire way to “own” the mess they inherited.

Are banks really so different than automakers? So far, the answer has been yes. The policy response has been to pour trillions of dollars into the companies that caused the problem. Perhaps we have finally reached the point where these horrifically expensive, wasteful policies will come to an end.

Well, yah. Zombies are zombies, after all.