Congressional mid-term elections. It will be hard to get anything through Congress in 2010, and that will include economic life support/stimulus/welfare.
Ah, that's the different point of view. IMO, 2010 will not be about passing bills. It will be about the who, what, and why of responsibility for passing bills. 2010 is a lame duck for those in (federal) power, regardless of party. It is up to The Rise of the States and Municipalities to provide the economic life support/stimulus/welfare you refer to.
Bush Jr and his republican goons have succeeded in bankrupting the nation. Bush and his neanderthal half-witted republican minions started off by bankrupting the nation morally and spiritually. The "moral majority" turned out to be a small number of well organized child molesters, liars, thieves, and all around low lifes. The Christian right were busy taking gambling funds in one hand while preaching the Bible to the rest of us with the other. TARP is a Bush Jr creation. After nearly a decade long nightmare governed by these goons, they put the nail in the coffin by bankrupting the nation financially in Bush Jr's final months in office. "too-big-to-fail" is another Bush Jr illusion. In the last few unfortunate months of the monkey boys presidency, he gave his pal Paulson the green light to S T E A L from the middle class and give to the wealthy. The half witted boy created the "too-big-to-fail" illusion as a last parting cluster Fk for the middle class population.
Wall street has gone global, US people's spending/ savings habits will just have to fit in to the greater picture.
Started with Clinton. The Congress set it up with the Feds help. The Bastards on wall street put the last nail in the coffin making it possible for Nobama to get elected.
The timeline of the most amazing screwup in our lifetimes: 1 - Bear Stearns belly up in March: sold to JP and saved. 2 - Fannie, Freddie start getting in deep water. Issue preferreds, which are bought by local banks at the urging of the Feds. 3 - Fannie, Freddie rescue package put together over the weekend of Sept 6, 7. Emphatically does NOT include rescue of the preferred shareholders. Local banks whose capital ratios might go underwater as a result told "to see their regulator." No kidding. 4 - Sept 8: preferred share market cracks. Of course. We are now well and truly on our way to an epic crisis. 5 - Sept 9: Fitch puts out warning on Lehman, says they may not be able to raise capital in the current environment, said environment of course now including a badly shaken market for preferreds. 6 - The Lehman death spiral begins immediately after. Allowed to fail over the weekend of Sept 13, 14. 7 - Money market funds break the buck. Crisis ensues. 8 - Paulson proposes TARP, and after fleshing out, this is passed by Congress. This destroys any chance of fiscal discipline by anyone in the foreseeable future. 9 - Obama elected, chooses Geithner, world quickly figures out Timmy is not ready for primetime. ...which leaves us where we are now. It's true Obama's only been in office for a little while, but it's also true he hasn't really dealt with the banks the way an FDR would have. The history is there, Sheila Bair was telling him to get it done, so there was no reason not to. But he didn't. So, we're stuck. As for fiscal discipline, no Democrat is ever going to make the mistake of handing a surplus to a Republican again. Not in any of our lifetimes.
I did. And I see what is happening at the moment. all that matters is the price action at the moment.