Our country desperately needs to retool its infrastructure and collective attitude in order to survive peak oil and accommodate the emerging technologies of the 21st century. We need the best and brightest to work on the technology, laws, and education to accomplish this daunting task. Additionally, we also need to re-invent a new financial system.

Unfortunately, the brightest American students have gone to Wall Street and have become a bunch of greedy jackasses who have no purpose other than to place bets on whether specific markets will move up or down. For this, they each demand a king's treasure. We've outsourced the technology development to other countries and don't think the rest of it is important.

I'd like to send all of the banksters into the countryside to grow rice or corn and re-educate them. That probably won't happen so the next best thing is to disincentivize them by taking away the comp. Legislate the upper levels of comp that they can obtain. Regulate the hell out of that industry--make them check the statutes to determine when they can take a leak. Squeeze the brightest people out of the profession so that they can actually perform a beneficial service, or invent a useful product.

I hope I am wrong but fear that it is a small bone thrown to the peasants so we won't notice that Treasury is creating a "bad bank" to buy worthless derivatives at premium prices. I voted for Obama and think that he is a very smart and honorable man. But the corruption of government and the big banks may have become so powerful that Obama cannot fight it. I do not trust Sommers or Rubin or Geithner to look after the interests of Main Street. These are Wall Street guys. I fear that Summers, especially, is a minder, there to make sure that Obama tows the line.

A lot of economists, notably Joseph Stiglitz, have called for the bad banks to go down, to fail. The country already has way too many bad banks. We need a good bank.

Word is that Geithner is going to announce that part II of the bank bailout is the creation of a "Bad Bank" with no strings attached. Banks dumping their toxic, worthless assets into the bad bank will get money from the feds, and no obligation whatsoever to lend! Many of us voters thought that we voted people promoting this kind of crap out of office. This action does bush proud!

As Peeps commented in a previous posting, we already have plenty of bad banks. We need good banks. Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize winner in Economics, has said that the insolvent banks need to be allowed to fail.

I am really disgusted by this. The model of big banking as we know it failed. It is dead. All of the real wealth in the world can't prop it up. James Kunstler has opined that before this disaster equilibrates, anyone with any money will lose it. A Bad Bank will go a long way to accelerate that outcome.

Obama showed once again that he has the makings of a great leader. The stimulus package will give people jobs and hope. It should also upgrade some of the infrastructure--all good.

It sounds like Treasury Secretary Geithner will reverse all that today by presenting a bone-headed plan, Paulson Redux, that will once again ignore the obvious--most of the big banks are insolvent and have to be shut down! Geithner will go a long way to turn the insolvent banks into an insolvent Country by once again throwing more than a trillion dollars buying worthless "assets" at prices the banks set. The idiot Geithner will take us all down, fast.

This was the sentiment on Naked Capitalism this morning. Yesterday, NPR reported a survey in which 1/20 respondents indicated that they wanted to see the bankers dead. I am also ready to break out the pitchfork and heat up the tar.

Legislate the creation of new banks, decoupled from the existing banking system. The legislation would include a lot of regulation that would insure that depositors, 401K holders, and pensioners, would not lose their principle. The legislation would also limit leverage and prohibit the banks from getting too big to fail. The private sector would operate the banks.

Let the new banks compete with the zombies for deposits and other funds. The new banks would loan money in accordance with strict regulation.

When the zombies go down, and take the reckless risk takers with them, who cares. That is what should happen.

This is one of the few times I will ever agree with the Repubs. The problem with the zombies is that they are not victims of circumstance. Their business model and practices are toxic and destructive to the well being of all citizens of the world. They need to be destroyed as soon as possible.

I have lived well below my means, and have, over many years, educated myself, and started up several successful businesses. Right now, I have a pension, a 401K, no mortgages, savings, no debt, and a diversified legal practice. The way things are looking though, by the end of the year, my 401K and pension will be stolen by crooked banksters or hyperinflation, and my businesses and legal practice will be swept away in a truly great depression.

CarolCarre is right. If you cannot trust a society to protect and promote an honest banking system and keep its promises to people saving over the long, long term, then American society and culture are finished. Several of my friends have already reached that conclusion and have left the country for what they regard as safer places. If things get as bad as they look right now, I will leave too.