As the Democrats become the party of the rich and powerful and corrupt, and as Salon blithely becomes just another propaganda mouthpiece for the [sic] economic brain trust, I offer a equitable citizen-level plan for when Teh Trap 1 and 2 fail. It's what we should have done in the first place.

1. We did need a dollar stimulus plan, but we got the worst possible. It would have been far better economically simply to divide about half the bailout trillions equitably among US citizens, adults and kids alike, and hand the money to each of them as a big check. Spend or save it or pay down debts, it would have capitalized the banks and stimulated the economy in the most efficient ways possible. This path would ameliorated the looming generational divide andthe rich-poor divide, (actually helped the homeless more than Obama's shameful photo-op).

2. Set aside the other half as deposit acct guarantee, but let corrupt banks and bankers themselves go under. Over time adopt stricter deposit-to-loan ratios, and regulatory structures. But, otherwise let banks pursue business as they will.

3. Set up citizen level cap and trade, starting with equitable distribution of shares to buy gasoline that can be traded on a government contructed market for dollars at the pump. Rather than tax gasoline purchases, tax each trade. Over time, abstract shares to represent other environmental cost, but continue to gift shares to citizens at large.

Better than welfare for McMansion owners and evil bankers. FDR must be crying in his grave.

Especially if we're stuck bailing out the rich for the rest of our working lives.

It could be worse!

Whether bank bailouts are a good idea or not, at least let's call them by the right name: peonage.

The government is taking money earned by our labor, by our children's labor, by our grandchildren's labor.

It is giving that money to the wealthiest, greediest, most corrupt people in the country: bankers.

It is telling us to borrow our money back from the bankers, at interest.

That's script, that's buying at the company store, that makes us sharecroppers.

That's peonage.

Deficit spending that relies on the current market structure is anti-environmental. Immense deficit spending that extends that model far into this century is environmental disaster. We remain a resourse-dependent, globalized economy. Yo, Mieszkowski, have you noticed the shopping spree that the Chinese (who own us) have been on to lock up natural resources around the world lately?

Environmentalists, of all people, should not mistake the few trees in the stimulus from the massive clearcut and low price timber sale that the stimulus both depends on and enables far into the future.

Give them a combo of business loans and direct cash.

Doesn't anyone notice the pattern Obama's elitist economic advisors are pursuing? It's pretty simple: take money from workers, give it directly to corporate executives while they lay-off workers and cut benefits. Expect nothing in return.

How much better to take a risk on small business startups. Most will fail, but a few will succeed.

Even if we want to prop up the car industry, the better idea would be to divide it into units competing to create a fuel-efficient car for two markets: 1) the government fleet and 2) purchase credites doled out to citizens at large.

Why does Obama hate working people?

The centerpiece of any stimulus package should have been a cap and trade program allowing consumers to trade personal conservation for dollars.

And there's that politically incorrect word: conservation. Simply adding nuclear, wind, solar, or whatever capacity without also capping consumption of targeted fuels will not decrease environmental cost over time. We will burn oil AND spin wind turbines. Adding this capacity on borrowed funds is particularly short-sighted when the money is ultimately coming from dirty-coal burning China. We're playing a shell game, hiding environmental cost beneath dollar trades.

Economic downtimes are the ideal time to introduce cap and trade systems, particularly systems that equitably distribute the newly tradable environmental good at the lowest level of the economy. Dollar-denominated stimulus may increase economic activity, but will prove inflationary unless newly produced value is incorporated into those economic transactions. Inflation hardly seems an issue now (perhaps the opposite), but imagine both a stagnant economy in which the fed has to raise interest rates to cope with rising dollar costs due to increased money supply. Imagine the 1970s.

The answer in the 1980s was monetarism. And Reagan. Think of cap and trade as monetarism's liberal twin (what the hell) and maybe it will start looking a bit stinky.

These loan guarantees are the wrong solution to the wrong problem.

..."less stinky."

Because a New York Times columnist or two supports nationalization?

Tell me which country is Leonard living in, because I'd like to visit.

As far as I can tell, people living outside of the New York Times and Salon bubble have started to last month's "Era of Responsibility" rhetoric with the reality of the rewards his plan gives to the irresponsible.

Wake up, elite Democrats. The bigger issue here is not nationalization, but trust.