I cannot believe how brainwashed Americans are. This is the same scenario from the great depression, but this time the worst is that US is covered with debt. I hope you do understand that government spending is never efficient and that this kind of money would never be taxed out, it would be printed. Good luck with the coming hyperinflation and dollar collapse.

Without jobs, the economic activity can't be activated, and Energy Independency should be a unavoidable task after all, given the last astronomical costs of imported fuel and the remaining fuel resources, I think. And the clear stimulus project will help curb the past enormous, wasteful earmarks. The past govt might be a war-oriented one rather than normal, efficient one, then now it would be better to cheer up and join in on the historic wave of CHANGE ! THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION !

Why doesn't our government send money to consumers for actually buying goods like cars, houses, appliances and other major purchases. Rather than sending out checks in advance of spending, send out checks for spending. This may stimulate the economy immediately and bridge the time gap until other programs can kick in. Also, we regulate electrical cost in the US, we the should also treat the oil companies at the gas pump like utilities and tie their profits to their production cost.

Hey Doug. First off, proof read your blog before hitting enter. "The part of the plan is disturbing". I assume you mean "that" part of the plan.

Second, I'm sick of you wall street pyramid scam artists telling us that if we "pay our debts" and "save money" that the economy will collapse. IT ALREADY HAS COLLAPSED YOU MORON! It just hasn't collapsed for YOU yet because you're all spending the TARP money on Mexican spas, hookers and blow.

700 billion to Wall Street? Fine. 20 billion to Detroit? "Well", says a-hole stock broker con-artist, "that doesn't help me directly unless I've got GM stock, which I already dumped last year, but okay I guess so. If you have too."

Now it's time to bail out the ACTUAL AMERICAN WORKING CITIZENS who've done NOTHING wrong. Suddenly it's "NO!!! You'll bankrupt future generations! DON'T SAVE YOUR MONEY!! SPEND IT!! DON'T PAY DOWN YOUR DEBT!! Create MORE debt for yourself so I can buy another freaking YACHT!!!"

Please, can you all just SHUT-UP for five minutes while the adults take over? Haven't you screwed up our country enough for one generation? Just retire with your millions, move to the Cayman Islands, get hit with a Hurricane and leave us alone. It's OUR country. Not yours. Goodbye.

Thank you.

How about an old disregarded idea? - Spend up to $1 trillion to buy up the bad mortgages, reissue new ones at, say 6% for 30 years. Then ask the courts, including the Supreme Ct., to actually work with the Admin. and Congress by setting precedents of nullifying contracts so complicated no one understood them, CDO's CDS's, swaps. The dissolution on CDS's for example, would be "This was fraud, or mistake or mutual mistake, so any premiums paid get refunded and the risk goes back to the original risk taker," e.g., the lender.

Meantime, Bailoutsters Paulson, Bernanke, and members of Congress could get real jobs as pirates. It's a more honest prpfession than national politics or lobbying, and a step up socially!

Before answering how this crunches were happened . The govt administration is there , huge economistcountry-I DONT BELEIVE THI THI WAS HAPPENED IN SIX MONTHS OR ONE YR. This might be having longstory.TO recoup this deficit not only americans allover world citizens has to accept the same find the ways out of crunch with strict adminstration.
Thanku
suresh

Where will the money come from, simple tax Wall St to the bone so they can't screw up the economy anymore.

At least we are hearing numbers --(that will be much higher)--about the state of the economy, what is important is that we prepare for what is coming in the future>>>>>we (american citizens that pay taxes) have been played like a flute!!!

Barney..

Past stupidity on the part of out government is no excuse to allow more stupidity. Doug was just explaining how it is rather foolish to think that our government will actually be able to affect a solution by spending more.

Politics aside, we have something like 10.5 trillion in debt now. (and another 1.5 - 2 promised in "stimulus packages and bailouts". This is double or so what it was in 2000. You can complain about the crazy spending of Bush, etc - but at the end of the day, the SAME problem remains. We have debt that is increasing at crazy crazy rates. At some point in the probably not too distant future everyone will wake up and realize that loaning money to the US Govt is a rather stupid idea - as we are a rather huge credit risk.

At that point, the government can only do a few things.

1 - shut down many many many govt programs (not gonna happen)

2 - radically raise taxes (ding ding ding - we have a winner)

We cannot continue to spend out of control with no consequences. If you or I go crazy and rack up more in debt than we can ever pay, we declare bankruptcy. Our government cannot truly do that.


Also - Who do you think is better at spending YOUR money? You, or Uncle Sam?

$54.6 Trillion$$$$ in DEBT!!!! There is absolutely no way can USA pay that back...The ONLY way to resolve this is for USA to file Bankruptcy and scatter apart the UNION... REVOLUTION!!!!

You totally amaze me. And i'm referring to all of the posters and the blogger. The blogger for stating something as ignorant as "where the money comes from is the wrong question. The much more important issue is how it gets spent". Are you kidding? Seriously? And the posters for arguing for "energy regulation", hating wall street, begging for handouts and complaining because reality doesn't follow their misguided principles. Heres the facts, basically what "bbelev" said reasserted.

1.) The "financial crisis" is because of cheap credit. This was predicted, not by magic or a crystal balls, by Ludwig Von Mises and about 5 other genius economists in the past century. But that is ignored.

2.) The same idiotic politics of our quasi-socialist faux-capitalist government have been practiced in concept by its people who stupidly thought/think you can just run up bills and get whatever you want on debt, because we all know that debt is actually a form of "currency" right? Energy, health care, retirement, employment, transportation its cool! It can all be free by the miracle of government deficit spending! Screw the future!

3.) If government can regulate it, it can be fixed. Oh my god, really? Like the failing railroad industry prior to deregulation? Like the financial industry with its 12,000+ pages of regulations and numerous watchdog agencies? Or maybe like the ponzi scheme of social security? LET IT FAIL! Then let those that survive make the decisions, not the loser consumers and "producers".

All of this accomplishes 2 sure bets. Inflation and giant future tax increases, sooner or later. You cant have your cake and eat it to.

These are not good statements for the incoming president to make. Increasing domestic demand is good thing, but not if it means throwing the country into hyperinflation. Frankly I see little discussion about fixing the causes of the current malaise, notably dysfunctional regulation and bad legislation governing home loans.

Chuck - My answers below:

"Past stupidity on the part of out government is no excuse to allow more stupidity. Doug was just explaining how it is rather foolish to think that our government will actually be able to affect a solution by spending more."

No, read it again. Doug was saying that we have to get consumers to "spend" more not "save".

"Politics aside, we have something like 10.5 trillion in debt now. (and another 1.5 - 2 promised in "stimulus packages and bailouts". This is double or so what it was in 2000. You can complain about the crazy spending of Bush, etc - but at the end of the day, the SAME problem remains. We have debt that is increasing at crazy crazy rates. At some point in the probably not too distant future everyone will wake up and realize that loaning money to the US Govt is a rather stupid idea - as we are a rather huge credit risk."

No, it's NOT politics aside. Politics is the problem. You right wingers are still yelling about "trickle down" economics while, you get YOUR bailout, and then start crying when people who are actually hurting start to need real help. It's ALWAYS politics. And investing in PEOPLE is a much better idea than investing in investors.

"At that point, the government can only do a few things.

1 - shut down many many many govt programs (not gonna happen)

2 - radically raise taxes (ding ding ding - we have a winner)"

Right. And we'll finally get a REAL progressive in office who will....ding ding ding....raise taxes on........well, I guess YOU. Which is why you're so mad. Let's raise the highest tax rate for the rich so that it at least matches what European countries tax. Why not? The world economy doesn't need billionaires. It's such a waste of our capital. Especially while people are actually starving. It's kind of grotesque how we live here.

"We cannot continue to spend out of control with no consequences. If you or I go crazy and rack up more in debt than we can ever pay, we declare bankruptcy. Our government cannot truly do that."

Read Krugman. Read some REAL economists. If we don't stimulate the COMMON WORKING MAN so that he/her can get out from under, then we're all doomed.



Also - Who do you think is better at spending YOUR money? You, or Uncle Sam?"

The only way to fix the economy is to get rid of the federal government and grow small business. We need to kill the big box retailer and give it back to the community store.

Any dollar the government spends to fix the economy is a dollar they already took out of the economy. Government spending by nature can not help fix the economy. If the government prints money so it doesn't have to take money in the form of taxes it will eventually cost every citizen more in the future due to inflation.

Nomatter what all money the government spends must be paid for by the people. Either in the form of taxes or by inflation. The only real economic stimulus is letting people keep more of thier own money.

Dropping welfare and medicaid would ammount to over a $1trillion tax cut. 1/3 of the budget is spent on welfare. Add social security and medicare adn you get another 1/3 of the federal budget.

How can we run a country if 2/3rds of our national budget is tied up in social welfare programs. End welfare now it is the only hope for our economy. We can give every taxpayer a 75% tax cut and still run everything needed to protect our country.

What Obama should do first is work like JFK for one dollar a year to show some example to the bro and sisters in the projects, and have Michele wear cloths from WAL MART.