In my opinion, we never really were headed for depression. It was all manufactured, all propaganda, all a scare tactic by unscrupulous men to get repaid 100 cents on the dollar on all their bad investments. How to do that? Simple. Scare the sheep that there's a wolf out there in the forest, coming to eat them if they don't pony up the money. And, oh how the sheep so compliantly forked it over. Sure, there were a few wise voices saying, "Hey! Stop! Wait! There's nothing to fear. Keep your heads about you. It's not what they're telling you."

Those that lost their money ought to lose their shirts, too -- not be bailed out by those that played by the rules and invested their money soundly and prudently. If bad banks and corporations go under, let them! They deserve to be weeded out of the system, not be kept alive and allowed to continue their vampiric ways of doing business. They will simply be bought up by good banks and corporations that didn't operate their firms as casinos. This is how capitalism is supposed to work, not you allow unrestrained greed to go unchecked when times are good, then nurse bad apples back to health after they took a swan dive off the roof.

It doesn't matter how much "stimulus" the federal government pumps into the economy because it fails to address our nation's fundamental economic problem: Global Labor Arbitrage. Our nation's economy will continue to decline and we will continue to transform into a third world nation until our intellectuals and politicians address foreign outsourcing, H-1B and L-1 visas, and mass immigration.

A Tale of Spending
...do pardon a story,
'bout a Keynesian fellow
named Mr. Fiore.

"More spending," Mark pleaded. "It's needed," he sobs.
"On go-nowhere projects and do-nothing jobs.

"On pork and on bailouts or surely we'll crater.
We'll spend it all now and pay for it later."

To Mark said the world: "Your debt is torrential.
Your deficits grow at speeds exponential.

"Fannie is bankrupt; your reserves are a joke.
Your states and your cities are every one broke.

"You've mortgaged your future, you've bailed out your banks.
Re: funding your madness, try 'thanks but no thanks'.

"You see, good Fiore, you're suffering so
for asinine spending from decades ago.

"Some short-sighted fools demanded more spending
on raises and pensions and wars neverending.

They were Mr. Fiores. They'd spend themselves rich!
'Spend!' was their motto. With one little hitch...

"Their loans would come due, their wealth be rebated,
by mythical cashflows and jobs they'd created.

"Only jobs didn't last, and their cashflow decayed.
And now here you are with their bills to be paid.

"Demanding they SPEND again. Let those debts soar!
What's one mil or two bil or three tril or four?

"We're sorry, dear debtor. Your logic is vain.
Your demands are a folly. Your plan is insane.

"So cry all you wish for 'SPEND! SPEND! SPEND! SPEND!'
Your sugar high's over. Your dream's at an end."

"I will," cried Fiore. "I'll scream my throat sore.
Critical thought's never staid me before.

"I'll comfort those people. I'll make the good pitch.
In Keynesian fashion, we'll spend ourselves rich.

"We'll tack on more zeroes 'till no one will lend.
To heck with the fallout. Fiore wants spend."

So they followed Mark's theory, and who would've thunk:
they spent themselves broke and their bonds went to junk.

Interest rates rallied, inflation took hold.
Food prices tripled for both young and old.

And where was dear Mark when it came to an end?
Right in the middle.

Crying

Spend!

SPEND!

SPEND!!

SPEND!!!

- COTO

The bailout was the biggest con job in history. 800 billion dollars wasted on fat cats who got bonuses, saved and sent more jobs to China. We have lost more jobs than what Obama claimed we would lose if we didnt have the bailout.

ENOUGH! FREE MARKETS HAVE FAILED! We need to force these companies to bring the jobs back, pay a living salary and make the super rich pay their fair share. As it is, we only spend less than one percent of our federal budget on welfare and on education and basic needs for the people. Most of our budget is Military spending, tax cuts for the wealthy and corporate welfare. BTW Where are these cut and save republiCONS on that?

Enough is enough. Time for Wall street to pay up, time for downsizing the military, time for spending on people's needs.

Fat cats, greed, and government guarantees for the too-big-to-fails.
If the government had just spent itself into an even deeper hole, we would all have two high-paying jobs now with no unemployment. Right? BTW, where does the money for the "stimulus" come from?

I just wanted to say, we haven't had "free markets" for a long time,40+years, and to associate the word "free markets" with the shi* that is going on... well, it's not a smart move. It makes it sound like "free market" is some evil organization.

The internet is the best example of a free market. Unregulated no gate keepers, yet you still find a way to carve out your niche and make it. So have a ton of other people.

let's not forget, that it was the government intervening in the housing, that actually caused this bubble. Easy credit, everyone needs a house. So you had a bunch of people jump on the construction bandwagon to build out new house, and they all goofed up. They made a gamble and it fell through. None of em want to admit they made a mistake though. All want saved. It also seems a lot of people don't think you should suffer for making stupid mistakes and want to see them saved(stimulus, bailed out whatever). No one wants to pay for there stupidity, or the numb nuts they elected, in any shape form or fashion.

This is the gist of what I have seen on the news/read.

Clever Forever is up and running, er, falling.

-MF