Friends ~ If this were Bush-Paulson we would be storming Washington. The Obama giveaways to Wall Street are starting to get ridiculous, and could dwarf the amount of money being put into the stimulus package. And for all this, economists don't even think this will help much. My point is not to denigrate Obama's character, or the many good things he has promised to do, but simply to make sure that we're informed and doing our best to hold him accountable. *Here is the latest example: *A new $1 trillion program would subsidize hedge fund profits with taxpayer dollars. Compare this to the far smaller program to help people avoid foreclosures. In essence, the government will put up almost the money for consumer loans. But instead of loaning it directly, they loan it to an investor at a bargain interest rate, who loans it at a much higher interest rate to consumers. And if the loan defaults, the government would eat the loss! Investors only have to put up and risk 8% of the overall loan. Under this scenario, they're expected to see 20% profits, conservatively! And guess what, you can't participate in this program, only private equity funds can! http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/business/20lend.html?hp In the meantime, while the government continues to seize ("nationalize") smaller bankrupt banks, they refuse to do this for the large banks, even though they're completely bankrupt (BTW, seizing bankrupt banks is not a new idea, it's how our system normally works). So, in order to keep them afloat, the government is continuing to pump tens of billions into them, but because they're so far into debt, the money is just going to pay off debt, rather than to be loaned out. There's no end in sight. The solution is to temporarily nationalize the banks. Not only would this be fair to taxpayers, but it would actually stabilize the economy. Once these banks were put on solid footing, by wiping out the shareholders, the debt, and replacing management, they could resume normal lending operations. Depositors would be protected. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/23/opinion/23krugman.html?ref=opinion Can you please sign this petition in favor of nationalizing the banks, pass this around, and/or write Obama and your representatives? This is truly the only workable and fair solution the economic crisis. And it's picking up a lot of steam -- lots of famous economists, powerful Senators, and even Alan Greenspan, came out in favor of this! Unfortunately, Obama, so far, is still listening to the fools who got us into this mess in the first place... http://apps.facebook.com/causes/petitions/75/invite?m=4cd8e387&step=1 Rob