Fed Tries New Approach To Push Banks To Make Loans:

The Fed announced this morning that it will begin printing additional money in an attempt to urge banks to make loans in order to stimulate the economy. (See the NPR story.)

The one strategy the Fed has yet to try is outright paying the banks money in order to encourage them to make loans.

Public Opposes Fat Cat Bailouts: The Washington Post reports that their polling shows that 55 percent of Americans are against a $14 billion bailout of the big three automakers. If lawmakers want to have the public behind them, they need to make it much clearer why failure for the automakers will hit the public's pocketbook much harder than not bailing them out.

If the automakers were serious about their appeals, one would think that they would be leading the charge in, first, informing the public of what it means if their companies are forced into bankruptcy, and, second, making public a thoroughly vetting plan for reorganization that would include major cuts to the profitability of being a bad CEO.

Hey! The banks and Wall Street didn't need to do that, and they got fifty times more taxpayer money than the automakers are asking for.

In other news, the media is agog over Caroline Kennedy's interest in taking Hillary Clinton's soon to be vacated senate seat. "Is she qualified, or is it just the Kennedy name?" the pundits all want to know. (She is an American citizen, and she is over the age of thirty, and she is a resident of New York.) Being "qualified" to hold office has always been a Kennedy bugaboo. Was her father qualified to be president? Was her uncle qualified to be attorney general?

When the pundits ask the politicos about Ms. Kennedy's qualification for being a U. S. senator, the reply always comes down to speculation about her ability to run for office once Clinton's term is up. No one talks about what kind of senator she would make.

The Blagojevich Saga: Was he making plans or just talking? David Johnston of The New York Times raises the question about whether the Illinois governor is actually guilty of something or not. Was he actually soliciting bribes, or was he just talking about the possibility of doing so?

What if you and I sat down together in the local diner and, as a matter of idle speculation, began discussing robbing the branch bank down the street, not that either one of us would ever commit such a crime, and the waitress overheard us and told the cop sitting at the counter what we were talking about? Would the cop be justified in arresting us? Probably the cop would wait to try to actually catch us in the act.

So where's the smoking gun, Mr. Prosecutor? Guess we'll have to wait to find out, but I'm guessing that one of the other politicos that the prosecutor was after turned state's evidence here. Maybe even the governor's own father-in-law, in which case I'm betting Mrs. Blagojevich will escape the fire.

Now, you have to ask yourself, when will this become an HBO mini series? And if that mop of hair hanging in the governor's eyes makes you wanna gag, now you know how your parents and grandparents felt when the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. (Okay, that's just not right!)