Never under-estimate the ability of Congress to muck things up. In the 1930s, the US Congress did a lot to turn a financial crisis into a depression by passing the Smoot-Hawley tariff act. Have America’s politicians just done it again, by rejecting the Paulson bail-out?

I suspect not – but only because I think that the market reaction last night was so strong that Congress will have to re-think and pass some version of the bail-out soon.

The Congressional naysayers, it seems to me, were motivated by three emotions: political fear, political pique and genuine ideological or practical reservations. The first two motivations will have been undermined by the collapse in the Dow after Monday’s vote. The huge fall in the stock market made the point that there is indeed a connection between the fate of Wall Street and the fate of Main Street in a much more eloquent fashion than any American politician has so far managed. Congressmen who feared being punished at the polls in November, if they voted for the package, may now have to recalculate.

Anyone who was hoping for some reassurance at this time of financial crisis, will not have got much from tonight’s presidential election debate. I thought the McCain-Obama exchanges on the Wall Street meltdown and the bail-out plan were feeble in the extreme.

At least Obama had four succinct points to make at the beginning, before getting sidetracked into debates about “earmarks” and other irrelevances. McCain gave the impression that he thought that the source of the problem is excessive spending in Congress. Or maybe he just knew that voters would respond to slogans about “pork-barrel spending” – and would get bored or irritated by complex talk of bail-outs. Still, the level of the discussion of the financial crisis was frankly depressing.

I also thought that McCain became noticeably more confident and coherent, once the discussion switched to foreign policy. While he was rambling on about the economy, I really thought his age was showing. But when the conversation switched to stuff he actually cares and knows about, he was quite sharp and effective.

As for Obama, I thought he was relaxed, coherent and showed flashes of humour. There were also flashes of silly populism – like the repeat of his pledge to eliminate US dependence on foreign oil within 10 years. But overall, I thought he did well.

However, let’s face it, I’m a foreigner sitting in an internet cafe at a conference in China. Who knows what Joe and Josephine Sixpack will make of it all.

I am in Beijing. But even here it is hard to get away from the American presidential election campaign. This morning, in my role as all-purpose seer, I met a group of Chinese journalists. The first question I was asked was – “What do you think of McCain’s decision to suspend his campaign?” Since, the second question was – “When do you think the Chinese stock market will recover?” – I think I’ll answer the easy one .

 I’m doubtless revealing my bias here, but I think McCain’s decision is batty.

Obviously it’s all meant to fit in with the “Country First” theme. But I think it’s just a little too stagey for that. As Obama pointed out, a Friday night debate doesn’t take that long out of their schedules. In fact, Obama should have pressed home his advantage by offering to switch the debate to economic and domestic policy – rather than foreign policy as scheduled.

If McCain had been conducting a campaign of utmost sobriety and deliberation up until this moment – I think calling the debate off might have worked for him. The trouble is that in the past couple of weeks, he’s given the impression of making spur of the moment pronouncements and decisions. So at the beginning of the week, he is announcing that the US economy is fundamentally in good shape. By the end of the week, the crisis is so grave that it would be a dereliction of duty to honour his commitment to one of the hallowed traditions of a US election – the presidential debate.

I doubt that the debate will take place now – at least not this Friday. (Which is good from a narrowly personal point of view, since I’m meant to be chairing a session at the World Economic Forum at Tianjin, just as the two candidates mount the rostrum.) If McCain changed his mind, he would look weak and erratic. As it is, he just looks hot-headed and disingenuous.