This isn't your father's recession, or as Krugman quipped about 2001 your grandfather's, it is a panic from the 19th century, where a house of cards comes completely unraveled with a bank failure. The fall of Lehman will be the precipitating event for the panic of 2008. Traditional options are dwindling. And Paulson is fiddling while Rome burns.
It is a panic. The Dow is crashing as I write this. Though it is bouncing back, The pressure to do something is enormous.