It's nice if stock go up if you own them.

It's not so bad if prices on goods rise if you still have a job.

If this is recovery, then the recovery looks every bit as mean-spirited as the the bailouts.

The rich get cash and decreased competition. They'll be the first who can afford to speculate on stocks and snap up Ol' Larry's "buying opportunities." How much more brazen can that guy be in saying "I'm just here for the wealthy."

Workers get credit at best--not increased wages. They get demands for increased productivity on the job, increased competition to get any job. The young get that massive debt to pay off for decades.

It's the very worst of Clintonism. We are again structuring markets in favor of the wealthy.

Oh let's see, have the banks been broken up? Oh, did the SEC ever thoroughly investigate that leaked Pandit memo that started the rally, enriching so many, including Pandit himself? Could it be that the government itself has a conflict of interest now--and may have leaked the memo itself? Where's our share of that money? And where is GM suddenly getting its cash, so that it doesn't need bailouts anymore? And what's up with all the black-ops accounting in the various tarps, bailouts, budgets, and stimulus packages? Why is the cap and trade program being structured to fail? Whatever happened to health care?

So, taxpayers of all classes directly put 165 million in to the pockets of rich people.

Doesn't that just about say it all?

Oh, and the Administration claims it can't stop this fraud.

We're not the only ones confused about the US relationship vis-a-vis AIG. Congress doesn't get it either, and the administration has been refusing to clarify. But, the newspapers tell us that the US basically owns the damned thing, or 80% anyway, and we also are borrowing to it, and we're also pumping in some sort of "liquidity injections," which sounds like enemas but apparently means cash handouts. We've got AIG surrounded every which way but loose. We still we can't prevent the bonuses! Wtf!!

We need a clear explanation. I think it's a case of AIG rats tossing flotation devices to each other on a sinking ship. Except, we, the US, are now the ship. Forget the nautical metaphors. WE'RE FREAKIN' CHUMPS!! AIG also apparently threw a lot of our money at other troubled institutions like chimps tossing caca. Oh yeah, let's all praise liquidity.

I still would posit a third alternative to acquiring toxic institutions OR lending to them OR outrageous outright gifts of money: a US created and backed Citizens Stimulus Bank with govt funded accounts for every citizen. Let us decide who to invest with. Obviously, the US government is no better judge of honesty or character than any given citizen.

Do our oath-taking officials have any fiduciary responsibility to taxpayers?

Apparently corporate contract law trumps all civic responsibility for our elected and appointed officials.

I recall how soldiers were sent for extended tours of duty in Iraq despite contractural promises that they had completed their service.

It's interesting how and when our government decides to follow the law.

The populist citizen's stimulus. As credit access. The rich get cash, the rest get debt.

EZ TERMS BUY NOW NO ONE REFUSED NO PAYMENTS UNTIL... .

Maybe we've progressed from Bryan's day, but this latest attempt feels as dated to me as the stimulus packages' imitation of FDR's alphabet agencies for delivery. Is this yet more outdated economic technology?

Bryan spoke of the income tax--an early attempt for the federal government to quantitatively deal directly and quantitatively with individual citizens. FDR offered direct individualized stimulus with SS checks and, later, ration coupons that coulda shoulda had a market value.

Rather than start citizens off with ever more enticing debt, there is no reason Obama can't just paypal us all a chunk of money. Or better, open those accounts he talks about but with a hefty inital payment. And a cap and trade account to boot.

If this government is so gung ho on inflation, why not make us individuals creditors rather than debtors? Why share the credit wealth only with the wealthy?

Why can't we be American citizens rather than global peons to Wen Jiabao, AIG, and OPEC?

Somewhere, Bill Clinton is snickering in delight, FDR has let his cigarette droop in dispair, and Bryan has taken up drinking and declared "well I'm a monkey's nephew."

That was an accident. The meek text shall inherit the windy post.

In a previous letter I suggested that our economic policies had started to smell like knee-high sweat socks--bad economy, threat of high inflation. If stagflation happens, the next step will likely be tight monetary policy--and conservative politics-- in reaction to the inflation we've created to deal with the current crisis of capital concentration.

We're on a more precarious see-saw than the 70s, though. It's not hard to imagine over-reactions as the Obama administration continues to refuse to base the recovery on help to low-level economic actors and continues to shelter elite monopolies and oligarchies. The fulcrum of that see-saw is the shifting, chaotic nature of the global economy. And the whole playground is built on the quicksand of bad/no environmental policy.