@steven787: Actually the $700 billion bailout was supposed to get banks to start loaning money again. So far it has failed because banks are more interested in spending the money in buying other banks, executive bonuses and spa trips. After all, if you're bank it's much better to become Too Big To Fail ™, as that seems to be the expression of the day when choosing what to bail out.
The possibility of a Great Depression II hasn't disappeared. The big problem is, of course unemployment. In two single months in the US, half a million jobs were lost and we're nowhere near the end of the recession. I'm guessing it will start getting ugly in the EU soon too.
Welfare for the wealthy (courtesy of taxpayer money), failing free market for the masses. That's not what I'd call capitalism. In the meantime, essential infrastructure which will be needed to get the economies going is nowhere to be seen. The double-whammy of financial and infrastructure crises will be painful. At the end of the Great Depression, oil was cheaply and abundantly flowing out of the ground in Texas, USA. What will there be at the end of this crisis? Reuters is already making a list of aborted/postponed energy infrastructure due to the crisis:
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN0638358120081106
Prediction: When the recession/depression/whatever is over and the economy is on the way up, the West runs into an energy brick wall due to lack of investment in oil drilling and renewable energy.
My Mario Kart Wii friend code: 2707-1866-0957
