The Secretary of State in Massachusetts today pressured Fidelity Investments to buy back auction-rate securities that it sold to investors. Those investors now can't cash out of what they probably were told were very liquid securities.

Good for Massachusetts. Fidelity should, as they say, join in the solution.

This mess is huge. So far, state and federal regulators have pushed and prodded the big firms to buy back billions, but this doesn't seem to be the end of it.

You can see me on PBS tonight discussing what lessons can be learned from the auction-rate securities market failure. I'll be doing a commentary on The Nightly Business Report, which airs locally on WPBT, Channel 2, starting at 7 p.m.