In that role, it would be able to lend to any important institution while seeking information from them, which Mr. Paulson considers more reflective of a financial system spread among brokerages and other nonbanks as well as traditional, commercial banks.

The Times in its Sunday A1 story, though, is more concerned about the headaches the Fed has given everyone else, reporting that “some fear that the central bank’s role in creating the current mess will undercut its ability to clean it up.”

“The Fed oversaw this meltdown,” said Michael Greenberger, a law professor at the University of Maryland who was a senior official of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission during the Clinton administration. “This is the equivalent of the builders of the Maginot line giving lessons on defense.”

Hey brother, can you spare a Food Stamp?

The NYT fronts a story saying that the number of Americans getting food stamps is about to hit an all-time high of 28 million, something it pegs to the “economic slowdown.”

But a quick look at its own chart shows food-stamp usage has been growing every year but last year (which saw a slight drop) since Bush took office in a recession—something the Times in part explains away by noting how programs that promote enrollment have increased in recent years and that legal immigrants have had some eligibility restored.

But our money is on these two paragraphs for the real cause:

Because they spend a higher share of their incomes on basic needs like food and fuel, low-income Americans have been hit hard by soaring gasoline and heating costs and jumps in the prices of staples like milk, eggs and bread.

At the same time, average family incomes among the bottom fifth of the population have been stagnant or have declined in recent years at levels around $15,500, said Jared Bernstein, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington.

A family of four is eligible for food stamps if it earns less than $27,600 a year.

The Times concedes that as a percentage, which is what really matters because of population growth, the real record is still held by 1994, though it doesn’t say what those numbers are. Also, based on the recession that we’re all but unanimously acknowledged to be in, you’d think the percentage increase come October from the year earlier would be higher than 0.7 percent, but the NYT doesn’t question that government estimate.

Beats eating at Subway

The Journal fronts a look at how marketing campaigns have boosted the popularity of a radical weight-loss procedure called gastric banding—which is a surgery that essentially ties off the stomach to reduce its capacity to hold food. Hey, if the drug companies can sell us all day long on mind-bending meds, why can’t doctors sell us on body-bending surgeries? (We’re not actually in favor of this. Just think of all the before-and-after-photo campaigns.)

Gastric banding exploded after 2006, when Inamed was acquired by Allergan, best known for the antiwrinkle drug Botox. Allergan bought Inamed for its portfolio of cosmetic medical devices, but “we quickly realized the real jewel was Lap-Band,” David E.I. Pyott, chief executive officer, said recently at Allergan’s offices in Irvine, Calif.

In November 2006, Allergan began advertising the Lap-Band directly to consumers, an unusual tactic for a surgical device. The company aired a television commercial featuring a distressed woman trying to “tame” a roaring lion pulling her to the refrigerator.

The campaign was an immediate success: Within a week, visits to Allergan’s Lap-Band Web site had increased nearly fivefold. Sales of Lap-Band and other obesity-intervention devices soared 50% last year to $270 million, making them Allergan’s fastest-growing product line.

Enter Johnson & Johnson. Last September, J&J’s Ethicon Endo-Surgical unit received FDA marketing approval to sell its band, dubbed Realize. In recent months, J&J has been bringing obesity surgeons to weekend training sessions to teach them how to implant the device. Bariatric surgeons such as Alan Wittgrove of La Jolla, Calif., who once pooh-poohed banding, say that J&J’s efforts are validating banding as an option.

HUD head rolls

The WSJ reports in an A3 scoop that Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson is set to step down today, something it calls a “blow to the Bush administration’s efforts to tackle the housing crisis.” His move comes amid allegations of improprieties in a Philadelphia development deal.

This ought to bring up some very interesting housing-bust-era confirmation hearings come nomination time.

Lehman defrauded

The FT reports on its front page that Lehman Brothers says it was defrauded of some $350 million by ex-employees of a Japanese trading company called Marubeni. The WSJ on C1 says the fraud “could be one of the biggest and boldest in recent corporate history.”

As if Lehman didn’t have enough on its plate:

The loss from the alleged scheme comes as Lehman is contending with other issues that have battered its shares. Though the bank says it is well-capitalized and denies rumors that it is facing funding problems, speculation that it could be the next financial firm headed for rocky times in the continuing credit crunch has sent its shares down 34% in the past month.

The new career path

The Chicago Tribune takes an in-depth look at the “era of unsteady work” as seen through the story of one worker:

Like millions of experienced workers caught in a sea change in labor markets, he is learning to navigate a revolving-door world of employment and just-in-time hiring. An engineer who began his career in the 1970s, before lifetime jobs vanished, Foss never wanted to become his own boss. But that, de facto, is who he is becoming, learning skills that don’t come naturally to him: networking, branding and promoting himself, juggling one job while keeping an eye out for the next.

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