Bloomberg – Ronald Reagan used to joke that the nine most terrifying words in the English language were “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” Barack Obama is making those words welcome.

As he approaches his 100th day in office, Obama is rolling back the Reagan Revolution and restoring government to a central role in the economy. He has passed the biggest budget stimulus ever, prepared the way for an overhaul of the U.S. automobile and banking industries and proposed a $634 billion government- funded expansion of health-care benefits.

“It’s profound,” says presidential historian Richard Norton Smith of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. “There are very clearly taking place some long-term, even transforming shifts in priorities and resources.”

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Reuters HK – David Bonderman, one of the the most influential figures in the U.S. private equity industry, said on Thursday his firm, buyout giant TPG Capital TPG.UL, wanted to buy debt assets offloaded by troubled hedge funds.

Bonderman, speaking at the Asian Venture Capital Journal (AVCJ) conference, also said a global recession would be deep and prolonged, and the U.S. housing market would probably fall further.

"When people are giving you debt that is grossly mis-priced, you opt to take it," he said at the conference in Hong Kong.

Volatile markets have forced hedge funds to sell off assets and securities to pay back investors who are keen to scale back on risk and hold cash.

But private equity firms typically have long-term investors, with up to 10-year lock-up periods.

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