Who is going to buy a bank when the banking sector itself has imploded?  Even with the government having stepped in, there are still major liquidity problems.

You are looking at the effect all of these bankruptcies would have in isolation and not the affect they would have as an aggregate.  Bankruptcy is great when you have one company who is unhealthy and needs to go under.  Bankruptcy doesn't work so well when you have an entire sector of the economy that has buckled under.

If all these banks would have failed, no investor would touch any of these banks with a ten foot pole for years to come.

I think the Federal Reserve had a good strategy that worked.  The banking sector has already had a major rally on the stock market when many people were worried that it would see systemic failure.  You can't really argue with results like that.  And everything that they borrowed has to be paid back regardless of what they used the money on.

This assumes all banks were failing.  All were not... after all... they found buyers for the first few failed banks, no?

Furthermore interestingly enough... one of the most overlooked aspects of this economic downturn is the rise of new banks.

There are new banks up opening everywhere in small and mid-level chains, picking up the slack where the big banks screwed up.

Had these big banks actually collapsed.  The mid level and smaller level banks still would be loaning money.  The only issue is... are the mid level banks big enough to take on all the corporate loans companys make to make paroll... since a LOT of companies think money left in hand is money wasted.

Overall i'm not sure any of this spending will help much.  We build a green energy plant.  Great.  These people have jobs... they buy stuff at Wal-mart. They take jobs from other power plants... mostly in the US.

Where is the stimulus plans that will keep the money in the US?  There aren't any, because anytime we do that people challenge tariff wars.

It seems like we're screwed either way.  Now if we spent a lot of money to establish like... services that aren't usually provided inside the country... that seems like the money that would be worth spending.  Tax breaks for building factories inside the US and stuff like that.

Even good banks could have been hurt by the bad banks failing.  People were running from anything with the word financial institution attached to it, even if those companies were in great shape.  This was causing even banks that were healthy by relative standards to face potential collapse.  The market doesn't operate on perfect information and often operates on complete irrationality.  Even a good company can go bankrupt.

And some of the bnaks that bought up these other banks (see Bank of America who bought up Merril Lynch and Countrywide) were hit harder than anyone.

Loaning to mom and pop in small towns is important, but that isn't what keeps a global economy running.  And a small to mid level bank cannot just jump up the ranks overnight to a multi-national lending institution that is an intricate part of the global credit market.  Banks do way more today than they did 50 years ago, and if anything banks failing now can be more catastrophic than it would have been 50 years ago.

And as to job creation, renewable energy creates a higher percentage of jobs domestically compared to say oil industries who are deeply rooted in foreign markets.  And there was a lot more sectors of the economy where money went than just renewable energy or construction.  Education and healthcare received a lot of money, and those aren't the kinds of jobs that are easily shipped overseas.  And the stimulus was just as much or more about preventing more job losses as it was creating new jobs.  The education and construction industries were looking at massive layoffs, upwards of 3-4 million when taken together.  Creating a new job may be well and good, but it isn't that useful if you are simultaneously losing jobs you already have.

Renewable Energy vs Oil is a false arguement.

Not many peoples houses are run on oil... and not many cars will be run on renewable energy.  A lot however run on coal.  Renewable energy will likely cost jobs in areas with coal since you won't need people to mine stuff anymore.

Healthcare... will mostly just replace existing healthcare jobs.   Hospitals haven't actually been hurt much by the financial crisis.  Unless you mean insurance type jobs which are eaisly shipped overseas.  Outside of insurance sellers.

Education... won't really create more jobs as we already have enough jobs for teaching.

Extremely valad if you know nothing about economics. Economics 101 anytime government spends money it must take it from the private sector. It takes money away from those who would choose how to spend it and would for the most part be fairly thrifty. It takes that money and wasts it through burocratic process and getting overcharged for any program it uses. No new money is created, and there is a lot of waste. To add to this, those getting taxed will eventially have enough and stop working, or move overseas where taxes are not as high. Jobs will then be lost and revenues will go down. When government spends money it is a ZERO SUM GAME. Now if you lower taxes more people will be enticed to start businesses creating more jobs giving the government more revenue. This was proven with the Bush tax cuts, our national GDP rose over 1 billion dollars. Also, China has the power to dump our dollar, it may hurt them, but it will hurt us more and they know that, they will recover quicker because they have a more global market, all we have is a ton of debt.  

No One said anything when the Bush Admin Spent A ton of money at the end of their second term..On top of all their other spending....

Sure they did.  They simply weren't as organized about it.   Web 2.0 has come a long way in just a few years time.   You'd never get a multi-city grass roots protest like this 4 or 5 years ago.  

But to certain people as individuals (and smaller less organized groups) were vehemently against Bush's spending practices.

You guys get mad that the government took over some sections of banks but in reality, they needed to do it.
It's called collateral.
Why would you just give someone money with no strings? This is a string. The gov WILL get the money back because a lot of the bailouts were either loans or buyouts.

The gov isn't forcing banks to give out more subprime loans. They are forcing them to give out money because people need loans to buy houses which is the basis of the economy. Holding on to the money only helps the bank owners and not even the banks themselves.

The fact of the matter, the market is doing phenomenally well for what should be happening right now. The market will fluctuate over the year of course, but so far it's been fluctuating violently upwards. Every dollar going into the markets strengthens the economy and the world. This is why we cross the bridge of the deficit when we come to it, because if the trend continues with the help of smart investors, it really won't be as bad as we are making it out to be.

I also want to inform you that it isn't just government or corps fucking up here, but investors as well. As you know, banks were involved in su prime loans because it was quick easy money. Home investors have similar tools on their computers and internet. Programs that buy and sell by themselves. Let's not forget those citizens out there who also rely on the quick and easy at the expense of the economy.

Just came acrossed this video:

Janeane Garofalo on Dissent from therightscoop on Vimeo.

What a difference a few years makes...dissent goes from patriotism to racism in a little over 5 years.

PS - The best part is when she tries to explain scientifically how all "right-wingers" have brain damage.  But that doesn't qualify as an "anti-intellectual unfair way to ..uh..treat dissent", apparently her dissent from the dissenters is what she was really referring to....but it is all fairly complicated and with the brain damage it would really be to hard to explain to all of you idiots out there /sarcasm

sqrl
there is no question that racism is a large part of dissent in this country.

The Obama bucks people were giving out with Obamas face, fried chicken and watermelon on them.

Pictures of the koolaid pitcher with Obamas face superimposed.

Accusations of him being muslim, as if its a bad thing.