my blog bio said simply that i was trying to point out the lack of new clothes, or any, on the emperor's body.

there is a widespread psychosis in america, that anyone with an opinion is a participant in politics. this set of discussions is a perfect example: "i would shut down hedge funds."

it's always in a passive voice, the telltale signal of a passive people. these two, and everyone not in office, are not citizens, they are civilians: resident, but impotent.

i suggest that every 'political' discussion should have a real action component, should end with something like: 'so i propose citizen initiative 2009/42. a bill to arrest financial engineers and try them for treason.' or similar- the important point is that the electorate has the means to compel performance from it's officers of state.

without this action component, political discussion is not really politics, it is gossip or career advancement, neither of which does anything for the people of america.

They're untouchable, they supply way too much kickback $$$ to the politicians on every level, city/state/US. They're here to stay. Oink oink!

I have thought about the too big to fail (and also too big to not distort the market and not corrupt democracy) issue. I don't know what the answer is, or if there is one.

In nature things don't keep growing without bound. They grow to a certain size and then they reproduce. The most successful entities are those that produce the most offspring.

How one might apply this observation of nature to an economic system and the participants in that system is not obvious. What would encourage or constrain a company to not grow beyond a certain size? What would encourage them to create competitors once a certain level of growth has been achieved? Implementing the answer to the first question might be what answers the second question.

Maybe this is just an interesting (to me, at least) and weird thought experiment and nothing else, though my thinking never gets very far with it.

to view a partial list of crimes committed by FBI agents over 1500 pages long see

http://www.forums.signonsandiego.com/showthread.php?t=59139

to view a partial list of FBI agents arrested for pedophilia see

http://www.dallasnews.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3574

And that will be kinetic energy directly impacting on the rich bastards of Wall Street and the politicians corrupted by it. But I agree that nobody has sufficient courage to initiate that kind of action.

I don't agree on all of the particulars (voter activism is exactly why we have what little investigation is going on in Congress — the people making that happen all owe their seats to populist outrage) but it doesn't matter, the exchange is just good reading.

And if not [Obama], who?

Well now that is the question, isn't it? It seems that Obama needs a little extra nudging to go in the right direction. That will have to come from somewhere.

Be careful where you put your money. I keep all my money in to regional banks. Services usually better, the people are nicer and have more lattitude. Keep your money in a regional bank and you reinforce the health of a financial institution that lives where you do.

Deal with regional stores. There are more cost effective than your typical mom-and-pop and the money is more likely to stay within your region.

last, and most important, is don't spend any money. Just do not spend any money you do not need to. This builds your reserves and doesn't feed the greedy piggy. Yes, it's important to spend something because of the feedback loop between consumer spending and the health of the economy. But like I said, only what you need, with regional stores from your regional bank and the money won't leak is quickly out of your region.

Salon has become a very interesting place! There is some of the cultural pap but then you have some analysis like that found in this article.

Impressive and a little off the beaten path ... I think as I'm loosing a feeling for the American "beaten path".

It's also interesting to see how long the talking points spewing neocon has lasted. I wonder if he started to think at all after all the negative comments he generated. But his mind was probably made up long ago, facts be damned.

Hope this helps.

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.