If you took even an innocent man and locked him up at Guantanomo for 6 years with no trial, he would emerge as a terrorist. After all, he's been locked up with terrorists and experienced treatment from the Americans completely at odds with our rhetoric of freedom. Even if he came out somehow not hating our country, whatever living he earned is gone. His experience makes him a valuable asset to the terrorists though, so he'll take a job they offer.

Don't forget, companies in other countries also don't have to pay health insurance for workers either. That's like a huge tax and a regressive one to boot, because the CEO and the janitor cost the same to insure.

If you add non-governmental health care expenditures to total government spending as a percentage of GDP in the US, the resulting number is higher than many of those overtaxed European countries with universal health care.

This "effective tax" thing, however, just proves our taxes are complicated and unfair. Some companies get tax breaks, some avoid taxes, some pay too much. Stupid system for a stupid country.

The problem with being a Republican is they had 8 years to do all the things they think are so great, and none of it worked. After we do all the things Demorats think are so great and find they don't work either, we can do it again. Except Democrats have LOTS of ideas and some really do work. Republicans have exactly one idea - tax cuts.

There's another structural problem - while we as individuals all need jobs, the country as a whole does not need as many workers to provide all the things all us individuals want to consume. Technology (and outsourcing) have made a lot of people obsolete, but we have not figured out how to scale our employment models accordingly.

If the Fed decided tomorrow to reclasify all the contract employees and temps in this country as unemployed, maybe this argument would carry some weight. And the unemployment rate would be massive.

Besides, don't Republicans love temps? Job security interferes with capitalism, creative destruction, etc. These days, most of us can be fired tomorrow if business dries up or, in "at-will" states, for no reason at all. Are we all unemployed?

They love to have it both ways, those right wingers. Remember when Dick Cheney complained that employment numbers don't count people who make their living selling stuff on eBay?

Helping people go back to consuming might prop up the economy, but we also need to invest for a stronger economy in the future, and a little more change in the conasumer's pocket will not do that. Independent of today's economic ills, we need the investments in our workers and infrastructure Obama proposes. It's more 2 for the price of 1.

Krugman was in the tank for Hillary, at least after Edwards dropped out, so I think he's just got something against Obama. He also was adamant that the TARP do the capital infusion thing, and apparently he was wrrong because we're back to trougbled assets now.

It is the job of Republicans to obstruct Democratic legislation - they are supposed to represent their constituents, and if a representative is from a conservative district, he is supposed to represent their views. That's how our government is supposed to work, and how it should have worked if the Democrats had done their jobobstructing Bush instead of worrying what Fox news would say about them.

We have the votes, and if Obama listens and takes one good idea out of all their aweful ones to heart, the legislation will be better.

Bush need not spend another minute protecting his legacy. Not like anyone's going to try to steal it.

Since the banks are no longer worth what the bailout injected into them, the other half of the bailout should be enough to buy them outright. I'm not saying we should, but it's a stick to use in plade of a carrot (they ate the carrot).

Force them all to write down all their bad debt now, on one day. Like Roosevelt's bank holiday, but make it a write-down day. Everybody has to put their cards on the table or the dealer takes all.

These banks need to all get together and write off their bad investments and start over. The Japanese Shinto obsession with never writing off a debt was what led to their lost decade.

The banks have to bite the bullet and go down in value. At some point, finance was 20% of the S&P. That's too much capitalization for companies that don't produce anything. At a certain point, high finance went from sustaining the economy to becoming a leech. If kids just out of college are pulling down $100K to do whatever the hell it is they do, that money is comming from the bottome lines of companies that actually produce things of value and the the public's investment in that kid's education is being wasted.

So many of us are cynical, but sometimes you can find hope in the strangest places. Eight years ago, we asked "how much can a president do anyway?" Well, we found out that in eight years, a president can morally and economically bankrupt a nation. Of course it's esier to neglect, plunder and destroy, in George Bush's path of destruction lied an unprecendented opportunity to rebuild our nation, and if anyone can do it, I think it's the guy sleeping in the Whitehouse tonight.

Tax cuts have not worked because they went to rich people who already had all the money they wished to spend (not to mention cutting the inheritance tax - that serves no Keynesian purpose at all). Middle class tax cuts will be spent, because middle class people spend all their money and then some. Even I, as a saver, will spend more if I have more.

Meanwhile, let the cuts on estates and rich people expire in '10.