What if, to paraphrase George W. Bush, this sucker still goes down?

If there is another lurch downwards in the economy after weeks of relative calm, it appears policymakers will again have to react “on the fly” rather than turn to new regulatory tools. Should another financial institution follow Lehman Brothers and AIG into near-collapse, in spite of the broadly positive outcome of the bank stress tests, a resolution authority to seize and wind up that company will not now be in place until the end of the year, according to people familiar with the regulatory legislation being prepared.