By MARIE COCCO

WASHINGTON — When the next president takes office six months from now, it will be both too late and too early to do anything very substantial about the economy.
Too late, because the mortgage, banking and energy crises have been so long in the making and their tentacles reach in so many directions that their stranglehold on Americans' well being may have only begun to be felt. The first real chance for the new president to make a seismic shift in economic direction isn't apt to be in 2009. It's more likely to be in 2010.< [more]