While I echo Frank's comments and understand his anger, I wish there was someone in politics with the independence, gravitas and chutzpah to issue the same condemnation of Frank and his committee. When serious people who work hard to do their jobs in the public and private spheres need to sit and listen to questions/speeches from the blowhards on congressional committees I wish someone would tell the committee members to "grow up."

I think Obama was generally perfect last night. One cannot help but feel confident that we have a thoughtful and intelligent leader. However, it is important to apply some reasonable criticism as well. Two points:

First, I agree with Obama's observation that we cannot turn the country around over time without the appropriate fixes to education, energy and health care policy. However, he uses this as a justification for massive deficit spending. I can only get behind this spending if I new we were doing the right things in these three key areas and I'm concerned that once congress gets its hands on things, we will be looking at some pretty f-ed up plans with huge price tags. As convincing as Obama is in front of the American public, he has shown no ability to stand up to Congress (particularly Democrats) as they have mangled each and every one of his ideas and proposals. He needs to get Congress under control or we'll be looking at budgets that are even more expensive than his proposal.

Second, the line about the timing of his outrage about AIG was a perfect score. But, like many effective lines, it was inaccurate. Obama was late to the AIG outrage party, not because because he was getting his facts in order but precisely because he did have his facts in order. In fact, the lapse in judgment was when he jumped on the outrage bandwagon along with all the blowhards in Congress (and Cuomo) who knew little about the facts and the implications of government intervention in the bonuses. (Note that Obama has since retreated to a more sensible and productive position on this issue.)

"And while both types use computer controls, the dual system needs more computing power, which also adds cost."

No doubt the systems used by the Insight and Prius require different computer systems and programming but it's hard to believe that the computing power between the two is so different as to contribute to any meaningful cost difference. How much more "powerful" are the computer processors in the Prius and how much more costly are they relative to those in the Insight?

I would imagine that any added cost due to computer processing power is negligible relative to the other differences between the vehicles, namely the additional size, features and amenities in the Prius.

This may be a depression but just because it's worse than we hoped doesn't mean we need to do even more of the same. Why doesn't anybody look around and recognize an important fact. Over the past several decades our economy has changed drastically and may have become unstimulatable (is that a word?).

In the past, a government stimulus would pump money into the economy and it would work it's way around. Jobs would be created, paychecks would increase and grow, people would spend more money on domestically created products and the cycle would continue.

This cycle can no longer be replicated. The government now pumps money into the economy and as soon as it gets into the consumers' hands it is spent on goods from overseas. We are saving the $8.00/hr job at Best Buy while much of the money collected for the $1,000 TV set winds up in China.

The current stimulus works as follows. We are borrowing money from China so that it can be spent on projects, thereby creating some jobs so a few more Americans send what they make back to China in exchange for goods nobody really needs. We need to see a major change in our economy and our values in general if we want to find our way out of this mess.

...is that Pelosi is for sale. I don't want to single her out because she's not alone. It seems like everyone in politics can be bought. But this is a case where I put the blame firmly on the voters. We continue to vote for corrupt individuals and as they become more corrupted and more powerful the odds that they get reelected seem to do nothing but increase. If we the people could start voting for some decent representatives in government, the power of AIPAC, lobbyists and special interests would be severely diminished. Again, without the basic understanding that Pelosi can be bought, AIPAC has nothing to offer Harman and this incident doesn't occur.