There's a tendency out there to attribute all of the increased government intervention in the private sector to President Obama. While he surely bears some of the resonsibility (as do President Bush and his treasury secretary, Henry Paulson), it's worth remembering that European politicians are to a large extent behaving, or at least talking, similarly. Here, for example, is a bit of an article from today on the Bloomberg wire:
"If bonus structures are irresponsible, banks will be made to hold more capital against them -- akin to a tax," Conservative leader David Cameron said on July 20. "The financial sector must understand that it cannot behave like the crisis never happened."
That's the British Conservative Party leader.