After a one-year, 50% drop in the stock market, and the fastest, deepest spate of job losses since 1974, Americans have a lot of data to support their sense that the country’s economic house is crumbling. The last thing they want to hear is that the man charged with the reclamation project doesn’t have a crew ready to start work. So when news broke late last week that two top nominees for the Treasury department were withdrawing their names from consideration for undisclosed personal reasons, what ordinarily might have been dismissed as a harmless staffing snafu became the latest cause for unease among those watching Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner
