Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, right, listens to Timothy Geithner, president of the New York Federal Reserve, on Oct. 15 before speaking at the Economic Club of New York. President-elect Barack Obama intends to name Geithner as Treasury secretary, a senior Democratic official familiar with the deliberations said Friday.

Washington ? Why aren’t the government bailouts working?

The presidential transition may be adding to the uncertainty roiling the financial markets. In fact, knowing the names on President-elect Barack Obama’s economic team may prove more helpful in calming those stormy markets in the short term than bailout packages that so far haven’t had much payoff.

After two days of steep declines, stocks rallied strongly on Friday — with the Dow Jones industrials surging nearly 500 points — on news that Obama planned to name New York Federal Reserve chief Timothy Geithner to be treasury secretary.

But that came at the end of another tough week for the economy.

While Obama likes to say there can be but one president at a time, Americans need to know one is fully on the job. While many different things have contributed to the economic panic spreading worldwide, it doesn’t help that the crisis is being played out in the muddled political wilderness of a lame-duck Congress, a departing president and an incoming administration that hasn’t yet been formed.

William Galston, who was a White House domestic policy assistant in President Bill Clinton’s first term, said Obama is likely to “name the economic team together as a package, so people can see how the pieces fit together and how people are likely to work together.”

That could come early next week. It could help bring some clarity to the economic strategy picture, and alleviate what markets hate most: uncertainty.

Geithner has been a top player in the current economic crisis — helping Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and his team manage the Wall Street bailout.

“Having a new administration come in with new faces and new ideas and with a Congress which is firmly behind it could restore confidence as quickly as it has evaporated,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com

“The Bush administration is winding things down and the Obama administration is trying to gear things up. And in the middle of all this, we’ve got this complete collapse of confidence. And there is a vacuum,” Zandi said.

Even with the late-day rally, stock market gains of the past decade have been essentially erased. Credit markets that had thawed briefly have frozen again amid widespread fears of a deep and long recession.

Congress, the administration and the Federal Reserve have hurled well over a trillion dollars at the problem. But while Paulson told Congress this week the U.S. had “turned the corner” in averting a financial collapse, there is little evidence that the economy’s downward spiral has been broken.

Obama told CBS’ “60 Minutes” in an interview aired last Sunday that, while the government’s big financial bailout program may not have worked as hoped, “things could be worse.” But, unless Geithner’s selection can work wonders, there’s little evidence things will be getting much better soon.

Among the mistakes and other reasons cited by economists and financial analysts for why bold steps haven’t had much apparent impact so far:

• Initial market satisfaction with the $700 billion financial bailout passed in October soured after Paulson abandoned his original plan to buy troubled assets from financial institutions and moved to use most of the money instead to invest directly in banks and firms that issue auto, student and credit-card loans. His statement this week that he would leave the final $350 billion of the bailout money for the Obama administration in January raised further uncertainties about the Bush administration’s commitment.

• The steps taken so far have provided little in the way of direct aid to homeowners facing foreclosure or who have lost their homes.

• Many economists fault the administration for allowing Wall Street bank Lehman Brothers to fail, after helping to rescue Bear Stearns and taking over mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The failure spooked investors.

• Rising unemployment and a sharp pullback in consumer spending have overwhelmed multibillion-dollar government efforts. Consumer spending usually accounts for two-thirds of the overall economy, and when it starts to topple, it’s hard to keep the dominoes from falling.