Good morning.

In market news the futures are up significantly, about 2% at the moment. The Nikkei was up fractionally overnight and the Hang Seng was down fractionally.

Apparently the jump in the futures is due to the growing perception that the Fed’s are going to take the “Bad Bank” option instead of nationalize the banks. Nationalizing the banks would have lead to zeroing out shareholders equity and the common stock would have been worthless.

In the mean time Obama is scrambling to get Republican votes for his stimulus plan.

Given that Obama can get his stimulus bill passed without a single Republican yes vote and sign it into law, I wonder why he is looking for Republican votes. If this bill is such a good idea, why is he looking for political cover from the opposition. Why does he not just put it through and own it and claim the credit?