money fairies, santa claus, and his merry, shoe leprechauns

dunno much 'bout economics, but for a stimulus bill, i would have had a simple, straightforward plan ... 200-500 billion in tax breaks to businesses to hire new workers or, in certain cases, rehire laid off workers. this rewards businesses that have remained strong and are confident that they are poised for future growth.

that would be the entire stimulus bill. no new spending. no individual tax cuts. nothing complicated or tricky. of course, you won't give breaks to companies that try to lay off and rehire workers to get a tax break, etc. etc.

the drawback is that the strong will get stronger and the weak will be more likely to suffer, but i suppose that would have happened anyway - but stretched out over a slower recovery.

the obama administration is falling into the trap that i warned about a while back ... they think that they are being smart, but they are instead going backwards trying to restore "normalcy." essentially, they believe that the only way out is the same way that they came in - that we entered the economic mess because of housing and banking and that the only way out is to repair housing and banking.

i disagree. they're not even using two-dimensional thinking. they're stuck in one-dimensional thinking.

they're unnecessarily wasting valuable time and resources trying to untangle something that could just be allowed to sort itself out. they are propping up the unfit.

also, at the first signs of economic recovery, the oil bulls will try to jack the price up to $60, then $80 and higher, and be a serious pita. oh btw, low oil right now isn't that big of a help to economic recovery since it is psychologically decoupled from consumer confidence. the best chance was lost months ago.

currently, i would guess that jobs and layoffs are the key psychological factors. you need to shift businesses from defensive, bunker mentalities into offensive, expansionistic mode where they will start rehiring. those are the businesses that you need to help right now. you should be giving money to the fit businesses that will repopulate the landscape. not the sickly.

also, about the simple idea in my previous comment, once the recovery is underway, you have to level the playing field and stop helping the strong - else you'll be left with a bunch of oligopolies.

anyhoo, people are so easily panicked. life moves on. have a nice day. :)