Andrew Ross Sorkin channels some Wall Street conventional wisdom in a New York Times column arguing that "the decision not to lend to Lehman Brothers" was "perhaps the greatest mistake of the crisis." The most important word in those quotes is "perhaps."

President Obama's former budget director, Peter Orszag, publishes his debut New York Times column today, calling for extending the Bush tax cuts for two years and then letting them expire. He writes:

Despite a dire fiscal outlook, many progressives want to make the tax cuts permanent for all but the very highest earners. Many conservatives are even worse: they'd make the tax cuts permanent for the likes of Warren Buffett, even though he'd prefer they didn't.

Two more thoughts to follow up the earlier posts here and here on the estate tax.

First, libertarian law professor Richard Epstein has a post up at Forbes.com making a series of characteristically wise and incisive points on the topic.

Second, I spent this afternoon apple-picking with my family and some friends at a farm in Dutchess County, New York. In the farm store was a black-and-white picture of the father of the farmer. The farmer, with whom I had a prior acquaintance, was kind enough to spend some time showing me around, speaking with evident pride of the tomatoes (which were spectacularly delicious) and of his son, who, with a degree from Yale, has turned to managing the farm now.

It's been about three months since our last subscription campaign here at FutureOfCapitalism.com, and we will formally begin our next campaign for paying subscribers next week. You can beat the rush by becoming a paying subscriber to the site now, guaranteeing that you will be sure to receive our quarterly report, which is sent only to paying customers. If you want to learn more about what we are up to, or if you appreciate what we are doing and want to send a message of support that will ensure the site has the resources to continue and to expand, the link is here. An entry-level subscription is less than $1 a week.

In the middle of a Boston Globe review of Tony Blair's book comes this sentence: "Blair, who expresses great admiration for Bush's intellect (that's not a typo) and willingness to stick to his principle, doesn't seem bitter about the political difficulties his positions caused him."

With a recent poll from the bellwether state of Ohio showing voters there would, by a 50-42 margin, rather have George W. Bush back in the White House than President Obama, such cracks about President Bush's intellect ("not a typo") are the sort of thing that rub a lot of readers the wrong way. Two points are worth making in response. First, President Bush is nowhere near as dumb as the geniuses at the Boston Globe think he is. And second, intellect in a politician is a highly overrated quality. They used to make these cracks about Reagan, too.

The Heritage Foundation's take on this morning's jobs numbers:

By every objective measure, President Barack Obama's economic stimulus package has been a complete failure. When President Obama was selling his stimulus plan to the American people, he promised it would save or create 3.5 million jobs by the end of 2010. At the time, employment stood at about 135.1 million, according to the Labor Department's most commonly used measure. That established an Obama jobs target for December 2010 at 138.6 million. According to the latest jobs report, total U.S. employment stood at 130.3 million in August, which means the cumulative Obama jobs deficit stands at 7.5 million.

The Boston Globe's Jeff Jacoby does a nice job of expanding on the points we made here August 23 in a post about the Cash for Clunkers program. Link via Professor Greg Mankiw's blog.

And more: National Public Radio has a piece on a study by Amir Sufi of the University of Chicago and Atif Mian of the University of California, Berkeley, that found, as NPR summarizes it, "The government's 'cash for clunkers' program boosted auto sales by 360,000 during the two months it was in place...But in the seven months that followed, sales were down by 360,000 compared with what they would have been without the program."

The Washington Post has a report of "panic" among Democratic candidates:

with the unemployment rate expected to rise again in jobs numbers due out Friday, panic is setting in among many Democratic candidates who fear it is too late for Obama to convince voters that he understands the depth of the nation's economic woes and can fix them.

More:

some Democratic candidates and political operatives feel the president is not doing enough to help them keep control of Congress, privately expressing frustration that Obama has recently emphasized issues other than the economy.

"We did the mosque, Katrina, Iraq, and now Middle East peace?" said a Democratic strategist who works closely with multiple candidates and spoke on the condition of anonymity. "And in between you redo the Oval Office? It has become a joke."

The article doesn't name any Democrats who are panicking or quote any that are not anonymous. It also lapses into the groupthink about the stimulus:

From a New York Times news article today about the Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal:

The book also shows that Mr. Wiesenthal came to the quiet and consistent aid of Kurt Waldheim, the former secretary general of the United Nations and president of Austria, when he was being accused by Jewish groups of having lied about his service in the German Army. The harshest suspicions of war crimes against Mr. Waldheim were never proved and Mr. Wiesenthal's role was largely as a behind-the-scenes consultant to his fellow Austrian.

This is all a strange way of putting it.

A Times obituary of Waldheim had it more accurately:

Several reader-participant-community member-content co-creator-watchdogs have e-mailed to follow up on the earlier post concerning Robert Rubin, Julian Robertson, and the estate tax.

Among Mr. Robertson's and Mr. Rubin's arguments for the estate tax are that without it, the federal government is "losing revenue" that it can "ill afford to forgo" and that, philosophically, inherited wealth runs counter to the concept of meritocracy.

Glenn Beck has a post up explaining what he was up to last weekend. He also has launched a new Web site of news and opinion, theblaze.com.

The Huffington Post has excerpts of Steven Rattner's new book Overhaul: An Insider's Account of the Obama Administration's Emergency Rescue of the Auto Industry. Highlights? Rahm Emanuel brags that his office is bigger than Vice President Biden's. Mr. Rattner says that Senator Schumer had vouched for Hank Morris, the placement agent "indicted on 123 counts of fraud," as a "straight shooter." More:

Rattner reserves some of his harshest criticism for Sheila Bair, the respected head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, accusing her of getting in the way of a deal between GMAC and Chrysler Financial by stubbornly pursuing her own agenda and even lying to Tim Geithner.

The New York Times has an editorial this morning supporting a provision in the Dodd-Frank financial "reform" legislation that requires companies to report a ratio of their CEO's pay to that of a typical employee.

"Without company-specific data, however, it is impossible to measure and judge the effect of pay structures on companies and the broader economy," the Times editorial says. "How does the pay gap between the boss and the workers figure into performance? Are companies efficiently providing goods and services or are they being run for the enrichment of the few? Disclosure of the gap could help provide answers."

In the Financial Times, John Gapper, in the course of a mostly but not entirely wrong-headed column on taxing partnerships and money managers, notices another capitalist speaking out against efforts by the Obama administration and the Democrat-controlled Congress to single out a group of fund managers for tax increases:

Daniel Loeb, founder of the hedge fund Third Point, described a proposed change in the taxation of sales or initial public offerings of such funds as an "arguably unconstitutional Bill of Attainder" that showed the Obama administration was "operating from a playbook quite different from the one we are used to as American business people."

How is President Obama's financial "reform" affecting consumers? A good example can be found in an August 31, 2010 letter that Citibank sent to its customers and that has been obtained by FutureOfCapitalism.com. The letter says the bank is slapping a $240-a-year fee on accounts with balances of less than $6,000, and that it is raising fees for withdrawals at non-Citibank ATMs to $2 from $1.50.

From the letter: "Citibank Account Package customers will continue to earn a monthly maintenance fee waiver by maintaining a combined average monthly balance of $6,000 or more in linked accounts. If you do not meet the balance requirement for a waiver, the monthly maintenance fee for the Citibank Account Package will be $20."

More from the letter: "The Non-Citibank ATM Fee will change from $1.50 to $2.00 per withdrawal...For those accounts that previously received reimbursement of fees charged by other banks for using their ATMs. these reimbursements will be discontinued."

The letter gives no explanation for the fee increases.