Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is not normally the first person I'd look to for cogent, well-reasoned analysis, but I have to say his comments on mortgage bailouts are right on.

Talking to the Wall Street Journal (subscription required), Paulson referred to many of the aid proposals making the rounds in Washington as "bailouts" for reckless lenders and borrowers: "I don't think I've seen any scenario where the American taxpayer needs to be stepping in with more taxpayer dollars."

He added that "I'm seeing a series of ideas suggested involving major government intervention in the housing market, and these things are usually presented or sold as a way of helping homeowners stay in their homes. Then when you look at them more carefully what they really amount to is a bailout for financial institutions or Wall Street."

Mr. Paulson believes that urging the lenders to cut borrowers some slack is the role the government should play, and I agree. Knock yourself out: if you can talk to the bankers and convince them to play nice, I'm all in favor of it. But don't spend our money bailing out lenders and borrowers, while artificially propping up the housing market.

And I'm still dying for an answer to my lingering question: Why is it bad if someone with no equity in their home loses the home? Is someone who "owns" a home but doesn't have any equity really a home owner?

It's a bit more than 20 years since the Dow fell 508 points, or 22.6%, in a single day. With Asian and European markets down a mere 1% to 4% today, it does not look like we'll have a repeat of that 23% decline today. What's happening in world markets? According to the New York Times, Hong Kong fell 3.3%, Japan tumbled 2.2%. South Korea was down 3.25%. In Europe the early news was not as bad -- London's FTSE 100 was down 1.4%, the German DAX dropped 1.3%, and Paris slid 1.8%.

Twenty years ago, the CEO of the company I worked for sent one of my colleagues to figure out good stocks to buy -- considering the market plunge an opportunity to buy good stocks at a discount. It turned out that he was right. The cause of the crash was found to be related to simultaneous computer driven-selling that somehow took the rationality out of stock valuations.

But will today's potential plunge also turn out to be a buying opportunity? The answer depends on your time frame and which stocks you buy. It's never clear to me why markets go up and down although "explanations" get printed every day. But it could be that the big reason for the selling in global markets is fear. In particular, investors fear that the U.S. has unleashed a subprime mortgage-backed securities (MBS) financial virus that is sucking an unknown -- but enormous -- quantity of credit out of the global financial system.

Hank Paulson's floundering effort to rescue the world from this MBS viral epidemic is not inspiring confidence. So I would not be eager to rush out and buy stocks in this market. Unlike the computer-driven selling of 1987, the economic costs of MBS's financial "innovation" are still too difficult to count.

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

With Asian markets expressing little confidence in yesterday's "amazing" Dow comeback -- the Nikkei fell 5% its worst day since September 11th -- the New York Times [registration required] reports that U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is keeping above the fray.

When he took over the job in May 2006, I posted that I could not figure out why Paulson took the job. I knew that it's quite popular at The Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) to go into government after making piles of money there. And I thought that perhaps Paulson took the job so he could outdo one of his predecessors, Robert Rubin, who was widely believed to have excelled in the job. And I anticipated a financial crisis due to a mispricing of risk which might have provided Paulson with a chance to prove his mettle in relation to Rubin's handling of the 1998 Russian financial meltdown.

Well, that crisis is now upon us and Paulson is proving that he does not have what it takes. A former high level Washington hand told me that Paulson is widely regarded as self-important and pushy. This has made him rather unpopular with economic policymakers who are happy to see him fail in getting China to let its currency float.

According to news reports, the Treasury Department is considering a new rule that would require beverage companies to add informative labels to alcoholic drinks. All alcoholic drinks. The labels would have to show information regarding alcoholic content as percent of volume and, most importantly, a "serving facts" panel, which would list, much like other foods and beverages do, the number of calories, carbohydrates, fat and protein for a standard serving size.

Already on Friday last week, I hailed PepsiCo Inc.'s (NYSE: PEP) decision to change the label on its Aquafina bottled water to say "Public Water Source," meaning, basically, tap water. I thought this was a first, small step into explaining the futility of this needless industry called bottled water.

Now this makes me just as happy, if not more. You see, I most certainly like to consume alcoholic beverages on occasion, but as conscious as I've always been about nutritional and calorie intake from soft drinks and juices, I never have an accurate measure when it comes to alcohol -- how many calories a pint has, a glass of wine or an ounce of vodka? Sure, there are sources that tell you approximately, but I'm certain these vary from one manufacturer to another. And why should alcoholic beverages be any different from the rest of the food and beverages we consume? Why shouldn't these companies have to report nutritional content for the consumer?

In my post: Don't forget to count drink calories when dieting, I finished by saying, "Alas, this goes for beer and martinis as well..." Then, not too long ago, AOL ran a feature detailing the Highest Calorie Cocktails. One of my faves, the margarita, held the second place with 740 calories!!! Naturally, a cocktail won't come with a label, but awareness is the first step, right?

By the way, it seems that industry execs actually support this step as well, as they felt consumers' demand for it, but the process could still take three years. Until then, and while I'm still blissfully ignorant of how many alcoholic calories I consume, I think I could use a martini. Cheers.