I would agree that the Fed, and States should spend on infrastructure. Actually, they should always be spending on infrastructure.

The whole point of recessions and depressions are to clear out the deadwood. Liberals (progressives?) never think there is any deadwood. They hate the big corporations, until they are going to go under, then they have to be saved. They don't have to be saved. If they can't do business at a profit, they shouldn't be doing business. You just can't keep making buggy whips.

Telling people to not spend their money is OK, as long as you realize that recovery will probably be moved back. Personally, I think people should individually decide what's best for them. That's the American way.

No person, group of people or government is smart enough to run the economy. We've tried that over and over again. The solution was the free market. That's the new idea.

I agree that private consumer spending will only result in more penniless, homeless and hopeless folks during the looming "Commuppance". It should be Government providing the spark to get us back to a normally functioning economy. The Roosevelt "New Deal" expenditures may not have pulled America out of a depression, but they certainly pulled Americans out of idleness and despair while completing useful and beautiful civic marvels.

But bail-outs, stimulus packages and government infusions won't do a thing if the value flows straight into the bulging pockets of the now-far-removed wealthy class. What we really need now is a restoration of Justice.

The Obama Administration must, upon assumption of office, establish a Justice Department that has ZERO TOLERANCE of corporate and banking fraud and a demonstrated intent to recover public funds that were swindled away and hidden. The RICO statutes provide for this kind of justice, indeed were written to address sophisticated racketeering like that clearly committed by the Banking Cartel. It's time this money is found and recovered. We are talking big fish here: If racketeering is accused, then Henry Paulson is Enemy #1.

And so be it.

Because it will cost twice as much later. That's a point that needs to be made. The anti-government mantra screwed us over by deferring needed improvements while they were most affordable.

Don't you mean cash consumers. "Credit Greed" is what got us into this mess along with a few other economic issues. How did our parents do it (balance a home budget), forty years ago? Remember, this was before credit cards. It was done via cash and check book accounting. If you didn't have the cash in the bank for the item (TVs, furniture, gifts), the average family would save the money during the year and buy the items when they went on sale. We all knew the big sale days (Holidays) and looked forward to getting more for your money back then. Fiscal responsibility starts at home. The government forgot about this and now the corporations and businesses that did not pratice fiscal integrity because of greedy executives and government ineptitude has put us right back to 1939.

The Fat Lady has started singing and we don't like the tune.

Consumer prices are where they were 6 months ago, or higher. Rents are higher, food is higher, clothing is higher, health care is higher. The only thing that's not higher is fuel, nat gas, heating oil.

So if all the retailers want to piss and moan then they should consider lowering their prices. This is precisely why Wal*Mart is doing well now. This is precisely why Starbucks stock is in the toilet. People need bargains.

Great column, Andrew, with an irresistible headline. A group of us in San Francisco are campaigning for the public employment of artists under Obama's Jobs & Growth stimulus package to work in the schools and couple an employment program with the President-elect's commitment to school reform and educational advancement.

The arts have shown their ability to foster a love of learning in a variety of subjects and serve as a collaborative meeting place for students from diverse economic and racial backgrounds. Artists also represent a 50-state strategy that can put talented artists to work who are young, old, middle-aged, male and female, gay and straight, disabled and not-so-disabled, and of many ethnic stripes. A broader demographic base than that served by traditional infrastructure projects.

In the spirit and noble examples of the WPA and the CETA Arts Program of the Ford-Carter years, we press Uncle Sam to invest in putting artists to work in the schools and community centers of our nation.

Michael D. Nolan

San Francisco

I would go farther than the author of this article and say: what we need more of in the US is production, not consumption. Consumers are, qua consumers, irrelevant to any market. No one can act purely as a consumer, without any wealth to give him purchasing power. Production *must* come first.

Our government is essentially using up all the "store seed" of our economy through pathetically short-sighted solutions, especially with the bailouts. What the government is doing by bailing out inefficient producers, such as the auto industries, is giving them unearned advantages in the market over efficient producers who could succeed in a free market, but cannot compete with government favored businesses. The government doesn't produce anything itself, it only redistributes what its tax-paying citizens produce; so when it builds roads, dams, etc., it is misallocating resources from where the consumers who produced, or earned, that money would be spending that money of their own free will. This creates further economic "bubbles" to burst in the future. We don't need more government spending--we need infinitely less! The closer we move to a pure laissez-faire capitalist system, the fewer boom-and-bust cycles--created through government dislocations of wealth--we will see in the economy.

(For a great discussion of this, see Ayn Rand's "Egalitarianism and Inflation.")

Best article I've read in Salon. You ae right on. It's called supply and demand. If people ain't buying then Companies have to downsize, and it becomes a spiral to recession. This Country has maxed their credit to the limits and now we are paying the price.

Hope Obama knows the answer and can right the ship.