We've all been wondering what President Bush would do after leaving office with the lowest approval ratings in history and now we have our answer: He's writing a book.

"I want people to understand the environment in which I was making decisions. I want people to get a sense of how decisions were made and I want people to understand the options that were placed before me," he told the Associated Press.

Flying shoe-dodger, President George W. Bush, has a track record of rewarding the guilty. After the faked intelligence that gave him the ammunition he needed to invade Iraq in 2004, Bush awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom to CIA Director George "Slam Dunk" Tenet. And to reward the banks that got us into the current financial catastrophe, Bush rammed through Congress a bill that uses $700 billion of our tax dollars to pay bonuses to the executives who run those banks.

How did he do that? As usual, he did it secretively. The law that created the bailout bill includes provisions that limit executive compensation for banks that get bailout money. Specifically, the bill requires that banks report to the IRS any compensation above $500,000 paid to their top five executives. If that reporting does not occur, the IRS can impose tax penalties. Not only that, but there is no limit to what people below the top five can get paid -- so there never was any way to keep taxpayer money from paying millions to the traders and investment bankers who often get more than the CEO.

Ben Bernanke lacks a strategy to deal with the financial crisis. He just keeps dropping more and more money from his helicopter and hopes it will jump start the economic system. The futures market has already baked in a 50 basis point interest rate cut for this coming Wednesday so with the Dow having lost 312 points last Friday, it would probably collapse even further if Bernanke backed off the rate cut.

But what is the point of this cut? 30-year fixed mortgage rates are higher now (6.47%) than they were in August 2007 (6.45%) when the Fed began cutting the Fed Funds rate from 5.25% to what would end up being 1% if the Fed indeed cuts by 50 basis points on Wednesday. Paul Krugman argues that the high mortgage rates may be a result of U.S. policy not to put its "full faith and credit" behind Fannie and Freddie debt -- thereby increasing its risk. If the Fed was trying to loosen up credit, these numbers suggest its rate cuts are not doing the job.

And While there are some who anticipate it will cut only 25 basis points, I am not sure why the Fed thinks this rate cut will do anything more than use up precious ammunition that might be more useful in an even more severe financial emergency. At 1%, there is not much further to cut. And with the November election fast approaching, it is clear that a real strategy to analyze and fix the myriad financial problems Bush leaves his successor will not happen until January.

At perhaps the most critical moment in his presidency, George W. Bush looked into the teleprompter tonight and warned the American people that very bad things would happen to the economy unless Congress passed the $700 billion bailout for Wall Street.

Kudos to Bush's speech writers. He explained the credit crisis fairly succinctly. Of course, he neglected to mention that his administration's opposition to sensible regulation laid the groundwork for the financial maelstrom. That's an issue, though, which will be debated by historians for decades to come.

Details of the bill are still being hammered out. The administration has agreed to caps on executive pay on firms who seek assistance. Some sort of plan to give taxpayers an equity stake in firms that the government helps also seems likely, according to a The New York Times.

The president had little choice but to reach across party lines because members of Congress were not buying the bill of goods being sold by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Paulson, in particular, showed remarkably poor political instincts by insisting that the bailout be approved as written. Whoever told him that Congress would give him a $700 billion blank check was crazy.

Meanwhile, the crisis is becoming the top issue of the presidential campaign. Republican John McCain today suspended his presidential campaign and called for Friday's presidential debate to be postponed. This is a stunt. McCain and Barack Obama do not sit on the relevant committees dealing with the crisis. Their presence in Washington will have little impact on the development of a deal.

Postponing the debates is an especially bad idea. The American people need to hear the plans McCain and Obama have for the economy. My colleague Peter Cohan points out that McCain has said many things about the economy such as "the fundamentals of the economy are strong" which he probably now regrets.

The Washington Post reports that the number of bank failures has been surprisingly low. But the crunch count is likely to grow as the problem bank list triples from 90 to 300 over the next three years. Meanwhile, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) could run out of money to pay off depositors of future failed banks unless it raises its deposit insurance rates from their current 5.4 cents per $100 deposits.

But the most interesting question is whether the White House is propping up banks that should fail so that it can push the biggest part of the cleanup into the lap of the next President. It is certainly bringing out all the biggest economic guns to delay the inevitable reckoning from the $8 trillion credit collapse. It spent $29 billion bailing out Bear Stearns, sent $160 billion worth of checks to taxpayers, cut interest rates from 5.25% to 2%, and seems belatedly to be enforcing regulations against manipulation of oil trading.

The Post quotes industry experts who think that the FDIC is propping up many banks. For instance, Bert Ely of Ely & Co., a bank consulting firm in Alexandria, VA, told the Post, "They are dragging their feet in forcing these banks to reserve realistically. Some of these banks could have been closed two or three quarters earlier." And Ken Thomas, a lecturer in finance at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, told the Post that the FDIC's foot dragging would only cost taxpayers more in the long run. Thomas said, "In some of these cases, I believe regulators should act sooner than later to prevent future losses to the fund."

Russian business runs on different rules. News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) Rupert Murdoch, who has been doing business in China for years, is nervous about his Russian enterprises. This morning, the FBI announced it had rounded up a ring of data thieves, many from former Soviet Union countries. And then there's the little matter of BP-TNK, a joint venture between BP (NYSE: BP) and a Russian company, whose Russian shareholders are booting out its Western executives so they can take over the operation.

Here's what Silicon Alley insider reports Murdoch had to say about doing business in Russia: "We have great growing business there but just -- this is purely me, I'm sorry, I'm -- the more I read about investments in Russia, the less I like the feel of it. The more successful we'd be, the more vulnerable we'd be to have it stolen from us, so there we sell now."

In case you missed it, The Detroit Free Press reports that an international ring of data thieves used wardriving -- the practice of stealing data from unprotected Wi-Fi networks -- to take 40 million identities, use the information to print fake ATM cards, and steal millions of dollars. The corporate victims include customers of TJX (NYSE: TJX), Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS), and OfficeMax (NYSE: OMX). Five of the 11 defendants are from former Soviet Union countries -- "one is from Estonia, three are from Ukraine, and one is from Belarus."

In these times of uncertainty, it's good to know that we can look to our president as a beacon of wisdom, shining light and nuance on the tough economic challenges our country is facing.

The New York Times reports that Bush summed things up this way at a Republican fund raiser: "Wall Street got drunk. . . It got drunk, and now it's got a hangover. The question is, How long will it sober up and not try to do all these fancy financial instruments?""

That kind of trenchant insight must be the true benefit of a Harvard MBA. I'm tempted to make a reference to the fact that George "Choked on a Pretzel" Bush knows all about drunkenness and hangovers, but instead I'll keep this non-personal. Although, maybe I won't: How long between Bush's last beer and his first run for office? Maybe that's how long it'll take Wall Street to sober up. Could be a quick turnaround!

But with bailouts of Fannie and Freddie set to cost taxpayers $25 billion -- to say nothing of the Bear Stearns fiasco -- it looks like this decade-long round of Grey Goose was on us. Cheers!

The White House is in overdrive promoting former press secretary Scott McClellan's What Happened. That promotion has helped drive it to the number one selling position on Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN). While Amazon will benefit from the sales of the book, the stock is more than fairly valued.

The White House's promotion is based on its passionate response to the confirmation bias it demonstrated in the run up to the Iraq war. As I wrote in this Business Strategy Review article, confirmation bias is when facing a major decision, one exhibits an unwillingness to admit conflicting data – no matter how salient – to influence a closed point of view. Mclellan points out that the White House decided to go to war against Iraq a year before its start and manufactured a false "case" to sell it.

McClellan pointing this out is hardly news. But I thought his comments about George W. Bush's cocaine use, as reported by 6abc.com, were more revealing. Recalling a 1999 conversation with Bush, McClellan writes: "'The media won't let go of these ridiculous cocaine rumors,' I heard Bush say. 'You know, the truth is I honestly don't remember whether I tried it or not. We had some pretty wild parties back in the day, and I just don't remember.'

Guess what? The Fed's interest rate cuts are hurting more than they're helping. Since August 2007, the Fed has cut interest rates from 5.25% to 2%. It thought that these cuts would help the housing market and unfreeze the credit markets. But all it's accomplished has been to fuel inflation thanks to a dollar that's lost 72% of its value since January 2001 when it traded at 92 cents to the Euro compared to $1.58 today. Have you been to a gas station or supermarket recently?

So this morning's report from Reuters -- that home prices fell five times faster than during the last housing recession -- did not come as great news. Specifically, single-family homes plunged a record 14.1% in the first quarter from a year earlier, marking a pace five times faster than the last housing recession, according to the Standard & Poor's/Case Shiller national home price index. Economists expected prices for the 20-city index to fall 2.0% on month and 14.0% from a year earlier.

Meanwhile, the Fed's interest rate cuts don't seem to be helping much. That's because they don't treat the basic problem at all -- they're just fueling inflation. The basic problem is that banks have hundreds of billions of junk -- $500 billion in Level 3 assets to be technical about it -- on their balance sheet and they can't raise enough capital to write off those lousy assets. So they aren't lending to consumers, businesses or each other.

By the way, do you know who was president during the last housing recession? George Bush. Quite a legacy for that family, for America, and for the next president...

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter.

It wasn't that long ago that Wall Street was in love with Crocs, Inc (NASDAQ: CROX), the maker of the trendy slippers that took the world by storm last year. After going on a tear for most of 2007, the stock started to break down last November, and has been in a tail spin for the past 5 months.

The company is going to be reporting its first quarter numbers tomorrow after the market close, and all signs are pointing to yet another troublesome quarter for the company. Earnings.com is showing Wall Street estimates of 10 cents a share, but that number does not really hold too much water after the company announced a much weaker forecast last month in its preliminary release.

Last month, CROX shocked Wall Street when it said that it expected to see a 5 cent per share loss in the quarter, and revenues falling somewhere between $195 and $200 million. After that news came out, the already troubled stock took a serious nose dive, and gave up around 40% of its value.

Despite excellent earnings from Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) yesterday, a bit of a shadow still hangs over the company. That's because in February the Air Force awarded a $100 billion contract for in-flight refueling craft -- known as tankers -- to EADS's Airbus and Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC). Boeing is currently challenging this award. But an interview I did for my book on Boeing suggests that Boeing will not win this contract because George W. Bush and John McCain want to award the contract to Bush's new friends: France's Nicolas Sarkozy and Germany's Angela Merkel.

I got this theory from a veteran Wall Street analyst who covers the aircraft industry. He suggested that Boeing lost the Tanker bid because John McCain -- who is ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee -- had the Air Force change the specifications for the tanker bid so Airbus and Northrop would be able to field a competitive bid. My source noted that the one problem with the change was that the Air Force did not inform Boeing about it.

After the bid was awarded to Airbus, it became clear that the original specifications had changed from a small, 767-sized craft to a medium-sized 777 one. During the review process, my source contends that Boeing asked the Air Force if the 767-sized craft was what it wanted. Boeing also told the Air Force that it would be happy to bid with a different model if the Air Force wanted. But the Air Force told Boeing that it still wanted the 767-sized craft.

Over the past ten years, eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY)'s CEO, Meg Whitman, has had a love / hate relationship with eBay users. No matter what your personal thoughts are regarding Whitman, you have to give it to her; she did take eBay to levels no one would have dreamed possible just ten years ago.

Well, her tenure at eBay is coming to an end, and her next move is into politics, working high up in Senator John McCain's Presidential campaign.

Back in January, Whitman announced that she would be stepping down from eBay to pursue philanthropy and politics, and her first big step is going to be serving as co-chair of Senator McCain's national presidential campaign.

While we still have not reached the point of McCain being announced the official Republican candidate for the upcoming election, it is all but a forgone conclusion that McCain is going to be the Republican's choice for November's pivotal election in America. After a rocky eight years with George Bush running the show, the Republicans are definitely going to have their hands full with this year's election, and Whitman is coming on board to have a leading role in the campaign's financing and policy development.

American President George Bush announced his new budget spending plan today, and the package came out to a total of $3.1 trillion.

Today's federal budget proposal marks the first time in America's history that a budget plan has been in excess of $3 trillion. Bush claims that his budget is "good" and "solid" and that the passing of this budget will help keep the troubled American economy growing.

All in all, this budget looks to lift government spending by 6% during the fiscal year 2009, and it will probably come to no one's surprise that defense gets a nice little boost from today's budget. Bush is looking to allocate 8.2% of his spending on security, and the budget is looking to stake a $70 billion "placeholder" for war costs during 2009. The Pentagon should be pleased with its figures, as Bush is looking to allocate $515.4 billion its way... the highest allocation since WWII (and represents a 7.5% jump).

Oil prices have picked up right where they left off last week, dropping another 56 cents this morning to $88.40 a barrel, as traders continued to express concerns over a possible economic recession hitting America.

Earlier last week, it appeared as though traders were willing to overlook both a bearish inventory report and mounting concerns over a possible economic slowdown, and instead focus on the back-to-back rate cuts by the Federal Reserve. But the oil bulls left the market on Wednesday and oil is now on its third straight day of declines.

One would think that OPEC's decision to leave output unchanged, despite urging by American President George Bush to lift its production quotas, would give prices a lift, but not even this decision was enough to bring bullish sentiment back into the market. Adding to economic concerns was last week's unexpectedly weak jobs report, showing a fall of 17,000 in December payrolls.

When we looked at oil prices this morning, we noted that traders had pushed up prices on two factors; anticipation of a rate cut from the Fed, and anticipation of a possible bullish inventory report today from the U.S. Energy Department. Well, The Fed did cut rates by 50 basis, but the inventory report this week was more on the bearish side.

Traders have opted to keep oil prices in the green today, focusing on the Fed's decision instead of the the government report that showed inventories rose more than expected last week. Going into today's report, the market was expecting to see a rise of 2.3 million barrels, but what we actually saw was a bit more than 50% higher than estimates at 3.6 million barrels.

This is the sort of news that would usually lead to oil prices heading into negative territory, but not today. The 50 basis point cut from the Fed can be given credit for today's move in oil prices. Prices are currently trading up 66 cents to $92.30. At these prices, we are just about even with where we were earlier this morning before the report hit the market.