Stocks traded lower on news that consumer spending has dropped for a record sixth month in a row. The irony is that some Wall Street types wanting to shift blame away from themselves for the banking meltdown point fingers at the American consumer and our collectively low savings rate. And when we stop spending and start saving...

Bank stocks surged today on the Obama administration’s “bad-bank” plan, which could absorb some banks’ most toxic assets. The current thinking is that the FDIC would manage this entity. The goal, of course, is to try to get banks to...