"Banksters have abused TARP and used it scam profits. But I'm not sure I would have liked to find out what would've happened if it wasn't passed. Main Street and Corporate America are addicted to Wall Street's products. Stopping cold turkey sounds good, unless your heart stops."

What PROBABLY would have happened (or at least what's happened in the past) is that the banks on the verge of bankruptcy would be bought out by larger, more successful banks...with the blessing of the FED of course.

"As far as stimulus good or bad goes, it's more what is the ROI of what you are stimulating. Presumably infrastructure like a modern powergrid or improved transportation or telco promotes future economic activity that can be compounded."

But corporations giving bonus money, etc and bailing out the corporations don't bother you? Oh and improving the infrastructure is a good thing...but given that you've SEEN (I'm sure) how slowly state workers fix the infrastructure, there's doubt there will be enough in the stimulus to complete the projects.

"And as a (snide) aside, I would say that getting anything to happen within 2-3 quarters is pretty much immediate according to government time."

Quite true...but that isn't what was promised. Anyway, I knew it would take FAR longer than they were saying it would. Problem for this administration is, most people expected things to change in a matter of a couple of months.

"Neither do any of the bills specifically say that Obama will not kill Bob the Carpenter."

And if Bob is an elderly gentleman, it just might!

"So, yeah, I'm not exactly in the Hollywood ending camp for this particular story. The price of gold is a good marker for a certain lack of confidence in fiat money. If you believe in the stimulus (Fester has mixed feelings) and you know there is a lag, why wait? If it takes 6 months to work, why wait 3 first? That means 9 months before anything happens instead of 6."

Ok...I know this...but the whole point of passing it so quickly was that we needed relief and we needed it NOW and we were supposed to get immediate relief, according to those claiming the sky was going to fall if we didn't pass it. Now I never bought into that...but it's coming back to bite them now. Worse, there was a LOT of PORK, on both sides of the isle, mind you, that should never have been in there.

Again, I see it as a boondoggle and it will, IMO, not amount to anything but a large expenditure for very little effect.

Getting people to believe in our economy again and inspiring confidence in our government would do MUCH more to get our economy going again, IMO.

"Whatever happened to healthcare as a civil right? You know it isn't really merely a purchase like buying a car. Mandating that we buy and just upgrading the warranty a bit doesn't really make it. It should be considered a moral issue because that's what it is. We wanted single payer or something very close to it. What do we get? A law that says we must purchase same insurance company "products" they've alway concocted, albeit with an upgraded warranty."

AH, now THIS DOES open interesting possibilities, doesn't it?

If Congress can pass this legislation to FORCE people to purchase healthcare or pay a penalty, then what is to prevent them from FORCING everyone to purchase a new CAR or be forced to pay a penalty?

The principle is the same...an old car can be dangerous and you're taking a chance if you don't have a new one. So...again I ask, what is to prevent Congress from ordering people to have a new automobile every year or to suffer having a penalty???

As someone who was down there with the National Guard trying to help your family and friends who suffered in Katrina:

I can guarantee you that we got there as soon as we could...but Bush couldn't send FEMA down there until their Governor asked for help, per federal law!

FEMA did the best they could, getting down there faster than they did to Homestead AFB in Florida years earlier!

Oh and the fact the roads were HORRENDOUS when we were trying to get down there didn't help us in getting there. We had to FIGHT our way every step of the way to get there!

Bushco treated FEMA like part of the RNC. And that's the truth.

And BTW, I seriously doubt I'll ever volunteer again! While there WERE good people down there, but there were SO many people who simply refused to help themselves, much less each other, it was ridiculous! Worse they seemed to prey on each other as well.

"Deregulation was SO successful with the economy - why not turn life and death over to it?"

Careful about throwing stones, DWG! The Democrat controlled congress was told about this oncoming problem too...and they ignored it as well.

"Was caused by the holy, sacred consevative cow--the free market. Crisis is the inevitable result. The blob grows and grows and finally explodes or gets ready to explode and the government has to step in and stabilize the mess. It's happened before. A bunch of times."

Deregulation and a government PUSHING for unsecured loans in the housing market did a great deal of damage...but that is not the free market at work. That is government intervention in that they pushed the institutions to make unsafe loans.

"the government is presented as the bogeyman who is the abuser."

No one is completely blaming the government in that you are correct, the corporation as some point had to take advantage of the deregulation to eventually get into trouble.

But AFTER they got into trouble, the government stepped in AGAIN to bail them out! THAT was the wrong approach and only teaches people to expect the government to bail them out everytime they screw up.