Geithner Warns of Long, Hard Road Ahead

Ok, I was with you up until the end, now pay attention. When you are in a deflationary spiral the only thing that will stop it is government stimulus in the form of spending. It would be nice if we didn't have a HUGE credit card bill from the previous administration, which incidentally caused or contributed to all of your laundry list of disasters, but that is not the hand we have been dealt. It's like having cancer, the chemo MAY kill you but not taking it WILL kill you. We have serious problems and we need serious people to solve them so go outside and play and let the adults handle this.

Dr. Zaius, I do agree with the concern regarding deflationary spiral we are in, however the amount of chemo to administer must be very closely monitored. In this case 11 trillion units may kill the patient.

Look up Glass-Steagall, that was the law that up until it's repeal in 1999 was what held back the tide of destruction that consumed our economy. The bill that repealed GS was called the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999. Yes I know Bill Clinton signed it but he didn't write it, the three authors of the bill were Senator Phil Gramm (Republican of Texas) and in the U.S. House of Representatives Jim Leach (R-Iowa) and Rep. Thomas J. Bliley, Jr. (R-Virginia), Chairman of the House Commerce Committee from 1995 to 2001. The bill passed the house with overwhelming Republican support and a few Democrats crossing the line and in the Senate it passed with a 60 vote veto proof majority, again with strong Republican support and lukewarm Democratic support. That is in a nut shell the primary cause of the mess we are now in. Now to the fix. The reason the bill has only around 50% in economic stimulus is because the Republicans demanded less spending and more tax cuts, and then when they got what they wanted they refused to vote for it anyway. More stimulus money would have gotten us out of the woods sooner and tax cuts are rather low on the economic stimulus ladder in the terms of actual effect. All during the depression the Republicans were preaching fiscal responsibility and in 1937 they got their wish and spending was cut back. What happened? The country went right back into recession. Most people believe WW2 was the ultimate cause of ending the depression. Foolish people try to use it as an argument against government spending never realizing that the massive deficits of the 40's used to pay for the war were what stimulated the economy. Now to the ending insult, sorry I hurt your feelings. However I have nothing but disdain for people demagoguing the issue of deficit spending during an economic crisis. Republicans have been creating deficits since 1980 to give rich people tax cuts when we didn't need to. Your opinion that the spending will hurt in the long term is a nice opinion, but I think I will go with Keynes's opinion. Consult your history, during WW2 America had deficits that reached 120% of our GDP. By your logic the 50's should have been an economic wasteland yet history tells us differently. How many times and in how many ways does conservative economic theory need to be discredited before conservatives give up and admit they're just plain wrong?