Fine, Here's Your Money Back

What's the plural of stimulus? Stimulus Part Two?

Stimulus's? Stimuli?

Today, during testimony to the House Budget Committee, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke endorsed the idea of a second "economic stimulus" package to help strengthen the weakening economy. He said that lawmakers should consider "measures to help improve access to credit by consumers, homebuyers, businesses and other borrowers." Because clearly, what we need now is people spending money on things they can't afford otherwise.

Don't get me wrong, anytime the government sends me my own money back I take it, but when we have to send rebates out to every taxpayer in the hopes that spending the money will prevent an economic cardiac arrest, we're in pretty dire straights. The government is in the business of taking your money; that's what they do. That's about all that they do. And once they taketh, they generally don't like to giveth backeth. They especially don't like to give it back to you twice in the same year, like they're thinking about doing now.

I an attempt to do my part in keeping the economic wheels turning I plan on spending my second "rebate" on this new Gucci wallet that I've had my eye on. Either that or stocking up on generic mac and cheese for when, well, you know.

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4 out of 5 banks agree, the bailout won't work.

Paulson's plan to buy $250 billion worth of bank equity, in the hopes that the banks would use the money to start lending... turns out it's a dump truck full of FAIL.

Merrill Lynch CEO, John Thain said "We will have the opportunity to redeploy that, but at leaast for the next quarter, it's just going to be a cushion."

Barclays analyst Roger Freeman stated, "My expectation is it's quarters off, not months off, before you see that capital being put to work."

For the punch out, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon added, "It’s clear that the government would like us to use the capital. If you are a bank that is filling a hole, you obviously can’t do that."

Strike 3.

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In a bewildering turn of events, Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson both gave public speeches today and the market didn't crash. On the contrary, the Dow closed up 413 points to 9,265 and the S&P surged almost 5% to 985. Happy days are here again. At least until tomorrow morning.