I was under the impression that the stimulus (as opposed to the financial institution bailouts) was set to go to the so-called shovel-ready projects out there. Some people seem to have the idea that there is just some massive list of projects that we can start handing money to. It still takes time to identify those projects ready to go and are qualified, and once they're identified, it takes more time to get them properly staffed and underway. Next, these projects tend not to be something that can be thrown up in a week, so it takes even more time for the money to move out of these projects and into the broader economic system. Add onto that some bureaucracy to properly keep track of all this money and what it's doing (something left off the financial institution bailout programs), and we've barely seen the first trickle of the effects of the current rescue plan.

Yes. I've already addressed this.

It's too little, too late, improperly targeted, and the structural reforms necessary to make it work are completely off the table.

Obama has done nothing but piss away a trillion dollars that's just going to get sluiced off to China, India, and the banksters.

Swayed by GOP attacks, independent voters are abandoning ship.

It's disingenuous to pretend that it's just the conservatives and independents who are saying it. Liberals aren't stupid. Industries and jobs are still getting exported and the banksters still own the government.

No change so far.

The powers of financial capitalism had (a) far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole.

If you take Carroll Quigley seriously, you have to believe that one of these days the banksters are going to crash the economy and use the crisis to rob the US blind, relieving it of several trillions of dollars, and leave it mostly destitute.

Some people suspect this may be happening now. Meaning, right now. Mostly because the banksters aren't making any secret of it.

We're conservatives, we don't need no stinkin' truth. Not when spin will do the job.

It will come back to haunt them next fall and winter when the stimulus DOES start to take effect.

The past 20-30 years of trickle-down econ has seen one major problem ignored in that time span: Infrastructure. It has been estimated that a significant proportion of our roads, bridges and power grid are at or near failing.

We all use and enjoy the benefits of these public works that are now (finally!) being funded by an administration that realizes the economic problems we are having now would be ten-fold without reliable land shipping routes or a fail safe energy distribution system.

It's amazing that its gotten to this point. The corporations and extremely rich are the main enjoyers of these public resources, all the while swearing up that it was their hard work, and their hard work alone, that is responsible for their success. The adults in the room know better.

These projects, which are just now being ramped up with stimulus money, will pay dividends for decades. Not enough for the 24-hour news cycle? Tough! The adults are once again running things, and that IS change...

re: Some people suspect this may be happening now. Meaning, right now. Mostly because the banksters aren't making any secret of it.

It's pretty obvious and is becoming clear to many in the mainstream press.

Frank Rich has written some scathing stuff, for example:

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In the context of our own Great Recession, Madoff’s old-fashioned Ponzi scheme was merely a one-off next to the esoteric (and often legal) heists by banks and bankers. They gamed the entire system, then took the money and ran before the bubble burst, sticking the rest of us with that fear, panic and loss.

The estimated $65 billion involved in Madoff’s flimflam is dwarfed by the more than $2.5 trillion paid so far by American taxpayers to bail out those masters of Wall Street’s universe. A.I.G. alone has already left us on the hook for $180 billion. It’s hard for those who didn’t have money with Madoff to get worked up about him when so many of the era’s real culprits have slipped away scot-free. Already some of those same players are up to similarly greedy shenanigans again now that the coast seems to be clear...

What’s uncontroversial and indisputable is that Goldman alumni have played key roles in both the Bush and Obama administrations’ responses to the current crisis — even though Goldman has a big stake in the outcome...

Goldman also rules at the New York Fed, a supposed monitor of Wall Street. Until May the Fed’s chairman was serving simultaneously on the Goldman board; he resigned only after The Wall Street Journal reported that he was also still buying Goldman stock during his Fed tenure...

In the most devastating economic catastrophe since Dillinger’s time, many Americans know all too well that justice has yet to be served.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/opinion/05rich.html

Can heads on pikes be very far away?

People keep conflating the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) with the Economic Stimulus Program (is there a nice acronym for this yet?). They are different programs, designed to do different things, and one of them was even came before the presidential election last fall. It's poor journalism and likely dishonest or grossly misinformed politicians that have conflated the two in the public's eye.

Remind me again - was Obama for or against TARP?

The adults are once again running things, and that IS change...

Democrats control both the House and Senate, but conservatives still have wide majorities in both.

Worse, Obama has been directed by Wall St. to hire only Wall St. insiders to be on his economic team. Worse still, Obama is continuing virtually all of Bush's imperial policies, so conservatives run the White House as well. All you've done is replace a brutally ugly and incompetent neocon with an articulate and competent neocon.

So where's this "change" you're talking about?