Both the Democrats and Republicans are offering silly, ineffectual ideas, so why not me?

I suspect there's going to be another stimulus, anyway, so here's how I want it spent:

1. Create a major national bank. I'm thinking more Jimmmy Stewart than Mr. Potter. No derivatives please.

2. Give every citizen a $40K checking account in that bank.

3. Give every resident of the country a cap and trade spending account, equally distributed. It's cap and trade or gold buggery, let the government provide a truly counter-inflationary and fungible commodity.

4. Require cap and trade shares for buying gas, and expand to other commodities later. (Buying gas would require shares and dollars.)

5. Let everyone trade the shares for dollars as needed to buy crap.

6. People can withdraw their dollars anytime they want, and deposit/invest in other banks.

7. Divide the nations share in citigroup and any other corporation equitably, and allow citizens to hold or sell by the Fourth of July. Force these corporations to compete for these dollars after that.

8. Stop nationalizing the other banks and let them survive or rot.

9. End all the patently unfair mortgage buyouts, etc etc, aid programs, etc etc.

But, having seen pics of whathizface's old house in the houses-for-rich-folks section of the New York Times, which house, while not a five house compound (though that farm in 'sconnie probably had some outbuildings and a cat or two, eh?) was still more than I could afford even if I timed a Madoff ponzi scheme (where was I), oh, and my demographic doesn't even get social security until we're like 85, if the old age pension system even survives, so quit yer bellaching already and quit hogging the viagra paid through the expanded medicare program which won't survive either and hey what the hell is my name doing on this pink slip?

I agree with you, mdlewis, and so does every country that tried to follow WorldBank directives during hard times. It's fascinating how profoundly hypocritical we're being.

But, I don't understand two things:

1. I can't see that it matters much at this point if _individuals_ pay down debt, save money, or spend.

2. I can understand why FDR worked through federal agencies (and created them). But I don't understand why Twittering Obama is exclusively working through thousands of govt agencies and creating de facto new bureaucracies with confusing lines of authority. Why not fund individuals directly with as little fuss as possible, and capitalize banks/save businesses through their microdecisions, and save state governments through taxes on their increased incomes? Also, the stimulus STILL isn't out here. If speed was the answer to "catastrophe" just deposit a lump sum in our bank accounts. What's up with the months of delay?

I can live with that, heh.

Which individuals?

I say all individuals. Obama, so far, has made payouts only to the most privileged. Btw, we have succesfully made direct payments to all individuals before.

Is the government a better spender than individuals? I'm not sure that's the point, but, fwiw, sometimes, sometimes not. The Iraq war was kind of a waste of money, imho. And in Obama's not so humble opinion.

The worthiness of projects in the stimulus ranges from admirable to nuts, but all of this spending, good and bad, is incredibly slow. The stimulus is really just another budget. Direct payments to individuals would have worked faster, and replaced many of the complex programs that will attract litigation and fraud.

For most people, particularly the young, a direct payoff would be some return on the immense sums they will be paying off for decades. But, those older folks looking at depleted 401Ks would also have benefited, as would mortgage holders and on, and on.

Instead, we're paying for luxuries for the incredibly wealthy bankers, insurance wackos, and the like. You've got the story exactly backwards.

Already going to hell just pumping that gas...

The chest-thumping contrition by various economists is still shallow. Our view of the history of markets needs to be longer, and deeper, and include all kinds of markets for all kinds of products and all people. Even now when we should know better, almost all attention is focused on helping the most elite people and elite corporations. Off they go to the G-20 to drink find liquor and screw us over. "Us" not just being Americans.

We need to break up monopolies and oligarchies, not enrich them. We need more competition in finance, not less. We need to include people in the economic system, not force them to the sidelines and black markets. We have to include environmental liabilities and commodity dependence within the market, and make them real within every market transactions. We must organize people across national boundaries. Just as Reagan and Clinton organized the elites against peoples across the world, we have to find a way to organize people to handle their run-amuck elites.