What complacency? Those clowns know that the vast majority of Americans do not agree with what they are doing through polls. They don’t fucking care. We started voting out the Republican party a couple of years ago. Has that worked? Dems/Reps, they are all the same. We need a third party founded on the principles written in the Constitution not one that simply pays lip service to it. When all this shit finally comes crashing down and we find ourselves not only in a depression (courtesy of the Reps) but an inflationary one (courtesy of the Dems), you can bet your sweet ass there will be change.

What actions can be taken by similarly minded taxpayers, citizens, laid-off workers, barely scraping by small business owners, and thwarted students searching for funds?…in short, most of us. Barry? Anyone? Any community organizers out there who are not wholly sponsored by a network or flailing political party?

Let’s measure the success of these blogs less in number of hits, and more via the metric of actionable goals.

Or if not by blog, then where to go when the ears of Congress and the Executive are deafened to our pleas by the campaign cash ever-ringing in their ears?

Until there is some organized voice with political power the average person won’t be heard.
He’s gotta get up and go to work.

“The american tax payer isn’t as dumb as people think” and “opinion was running 300:1 against TARP”

There is a true disconnect between those two sentences.

You ask those people what the consequences of just letting the stupid institutions fall would have been, and you will see how amazingly ignorant, and prone to act on emotions, most people are. They have no clue about all the stuff that would have landed on and crushed them if their desire had been fulfilled. They don’t understand how their pensions, life insurances and jobs, are all dependent on a functional financial system. They don’t understand that perfectly healthy and profitable businesses can be forced to close down if credit is not available. They don’t understand what kind of an exsistencial crisis is imposed on an industrialized society if an instantaneous 25% unemployment rate occurs. All they can see is that some big bad Wall Street billionaires are getting some of their hard earned money.

I certainly don’t agree with the way the TARP was implemented, but the only viable alternative discussed at that time (among all those 300:1’ers) was the idiotic idea of doing nothing, and punish the bad Wall Street people by letting it all collapse. My favorite solution was a lot better than TARP, but it was also so far to the left of the political balance in the Senate that I am glad nobody wasted time trying to get it done.

Barry had a comment, “I wonder what will happen if or when the public realizes the enormity of the theft that has taken place right out in plain view, before their very eyes. Don’t know? Don’t care? Sheeple? I simply don’t get the complacency . . .

This is what has drove me to finally sign up to comment vs. read and remain passive/frustrated.

My hypothesis is that most people who understand what is happening do not have an organized method to express their dissatisfaction, without coming across in a way that is easy to destroy the credibility of the person.

We know from the original TARP that Congress does not listen, or rather that the government/bank PR would not have been able to take 95% negative response rate from congressional constituents around the country, spin it, and pass the flawed legislation anyway.

There are enough folks: Stiglitz, Krugman, Shedlock, Ritholtz, etc. with the same basis issues with the direction things are going – but the splintered nature of the complaints and analyses is allowing for the power base to divide and conquer, discredit the argument, attack the person’s credibility, or just ignore and continue.

What is needed is a way to get the view of the masses to be heard and not discounted.

Open Question to All:

Barry or others here: How do we get critical mass to be taken seriously about what is happening with these financial bailouts, transfer of wealth, etc. ? Blogging, interviews on Bloomberg, and other similar efforts are not working – or at least not working fast enough.

And don’t forget…letting the banks fail is not just a theoretical exercise. It would have very real consequences for millions of Americans. The aftershocks around the world would cause millions to lose their assets, millions to be thrown out of work, and probably tens of thousands of innocents would die.

When someone who calls bullshit on lefty economists for moralizing launches into “TARP: Do it for the children!” moralizing, I call double-bullshit.

Without being able to quantify for comparison’ sake the projected dislocations/destabilizations/fallout caused by the (a) TARP vs (b) Nationalization/Pre-pack BK options, you fall into the same trap you accuse Stiglitz of falling into. All you can give are just more spooky campfire stories to give the little ones nightmares.

I think you have to take Stiglitz in the larger context, viz. the recent TARP COP report criticizing the administration for failing to account for why different historical (and successful) policy alternatives were not considered — suggesting at a minimum that a limited mindset is at play, if not an insider cartel mindset. I’m with Stiglitz that far. The ad hominem against Larry Summers and Wall Street insiders generally I can take or leave.

Having said that, I will say that IMO you’re a big improvement over otto. ;)