Bank lending: On the wrong track

Gordon Brown deserves praise for much of his strong and decisive bank rescue plan. But the UK prime minister seems to be suffering from one sort of weak thinking. He wants banks to get mortgage availability to 2007 levels. And Hank Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary, who is following the «Brown» plan, now says banks should «deploy» their new capital. Do they want to get the old culture of excess leverage up and running again? There is a charitable interpretation of Paulson’s injunction. The g...