The election is over. On to the crummy economy:
And the economy is in the dumpster. A month ago there was much hand-waving about a predicted collapse of the banking system. And there probably would have been except for a big infusion of federal cash into the biggest banks. However, after that some weird things started to happen.
Part of the purpose of the federal infusion of money was to convince banks to start lending to each other to restart the day-to-day of funds through the financial system. I bought into the idea along with anyone who didn't live in a trailer in South Carolina. It turns out that the banks, which are large, fat, conservative institutions, instead of lending money, acted like large, fat, conservative institutions. They have sat on the money, continuing to pay dividends, but aren't opening the dollar spigot.
Apparently the fear now is that the large banks haven't revealed just how bad their financial footing really is. They are pretending the whole mess will go away.
On top of that last week another set of large, fat, conservative businesses, the auto companies, went to Congress last week to ask for a piece of the federal bailout action. The sole argument of the auto executives was "fund us or we will go out of business and cripple the economy. " Their argument wasn't bolstered by the fact they all flew to DC in fancy corporate jets. (These are the same clowns who continue to advertised monster-sized trucks during football games.) Congress beat them up sent them away until they could come up with a better plan.
I don't this plan will included a General Motors version of the Prius anytime soon.
Perhaps Congress is starting to hear from taxpayers who are tired of large, fat, conservative corporations.