Getting Our "Acts" Together

I see the pundits on television, which I have curtailed sharply since the election cycle and subsequent inauguration, now shifting their attention to the economy. These one-time "political commentators" are now "economic experts" all jawboning about what we should do to weather the storm. I know as much as they do, which is not much. None of us our economists, we really do not know how far the fissure runs or how deep. The facts keep coming out piece-meal, without any company owning up to their true exposure, leaving us all to speculate and argue over the one plan that we have. It would be nice if there was dialogue about the several plans proposed but we only have one plan...for the government to shovel in as much cash as it can to keep us all afloat.

When the TARP plan was introduced, we hurried the process because it was needed ASAP to avert the failure of the US and by extension world financial systems. It passed with flaws. When the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA?) was similarly rushed and passed just a few weeks ago, it too passed with flaws. It seems that we have no time to get our Acts together, so to speak. Everything is a big rush to save us from pain and the expectations are too high.

Amongst ourselves, we talk of surviving this year and wondering about the next. What are we supposed to believe when the stock market rallies because the street got wind of an internal memo at Citigroup that said all will be well with the bank, it was profitable in January and February. Well if the Government owns 36% of the bank by way of a $30,000,000,000+ capital injection that the bank has received from taxpayers, I'd say things were pretty good too though it baffles the mind that you can call yourself profitable when you've just been bailed out. But would I believe CEO Vikram Pandit? No. This is something every CEO says to boost morale. You have to believe that things will get better even if they don't. And besides, Bernanke said again today that certain banks, like Citigroup, will not be allowed to fail. There is no other plan.