Great stuff, Laura. I published a few things as an academic a long time ago but felt that my writing was dull. I took a creative writing class and learned to write some stories, still not good enough to send out to any publication I respected(the Groucho Marx thing). Finally, after a couple of years backpacking south of the border, I retired in Chiapas, Mexico and set up my own website(www.dickginnold.com). Fifty bucks a year and I can put anything in print or foto on my site. It is mostly for family but my friends or anyone can visit. So far in a year I have had 1000+hits and noone has been angered enough to hack it down. At 72, it gives me a fun hobby and keeps me off the streets. My kids and grandkids and mom like the way I glorify them. I am writing up my life and a few stories. Noone has complained, nor have I gotten much feedback, but I love it. If you are tempted to publish, try this approach.

Joe, that was excellent and needed to be said. Why did Demos and the Obama accept the Tea Parties..etc, when they were so obviously done by provacateurs? These are simply rich, insidious liars, who will do anything to win, including exploiting a largely ignorant, dumb, creation believing, Gods Little Acre type based, flavored with leaders who are all about the money. Look at the votes on Health Care Reform and who is financing the elected representatives blocking reform.

It is sad but Republican equals inordinate love of money. No more a day when Eisenhower would fire Sherman Adams, his chief of staff, for accepting a vicuna coat, or Sen. Vandenberg would say, politics stops at the water line.

No matter, let us all work hard to get the great tent majority behind the reforms Democrats have championed, help rebuild labor, stay clean morally and money-wise and build a legacy behind Obama that will rival the Roosevelt era. Maybe some Republicans will start coming along. Well and good. Remember that Mine Safety, OSHA,EPA, Endangered Species, Clean Water, and oh, Medicare, were all passed by a Democrat-led movement with quite a few Republicans, including Nixon, tagging along. We are in power, shakily, now. Let us Dems, all of us, stick together and consolidate this now. This is what will isolate and defeat the vast right-wing conspiracy.

Thanks for the Johnson/Talbott exchange. I support Barack but have been dismayed by his and Geithner's lack of agressive action re. banks and Wall Street. A good way to get rid of hedge funds, in addition to better regulation,is to eliminate the low tax rate on earnings there. Why shouldn't all hedge fund salaries and earnings pay the normal income tax rate? And, for that matter let's pay for the Obama reforms by moving tax rates back closer to the 60+ rate for upper income groups, still lower than the l960s, our last broad prosperity.

Another way to reduce the banking sector is to go back to the practice in the 50s and 60s of having banks hold their own loans or at least have a 50% stake. No more selling loans and having anonymous and unaccountable mortgage brokers laundering bundles of disparate and potentially illegitimate loans. There should also be a requirement for a significant portion of lending and other operations to be within the SMSA of the bank and restrictions on interstate banking, except where justified before the C of C.

Bankers should not just be under FDIC or C of C supervision, each individual bank employee should be licensed both by the state govt. and the federal government and have to pass a course of instruction and examination which includes ethics and the meaning of fiduciary responsibility. If real estate agents and escrow agents in most states must do the above, why not bankers?

In addition, credit unions have a big role in the financial system, are run by members and tend to lend locally. There is much less risk of fraud or over-leveraging. They should receive additional incentives to grow.

Why isn't a Congressional committee doing a version of the Pecora hearings, naming the scoundrels and the bad instruments and practices that started this and recommending reform. We can't leave it to a tainted Treasury secretary, with his mumbo-jumbo, pacifying recommendations to do the work of investigating and correcting the Wall Street crimes.

Finally, Americans and government are still in denial about how deep this depression will go, but the growing unemployment and the risks of a double-dip and no-growth economy will continue, until we recognize what went wrong and get together to correct it.