(no subject)

The United States Conference of Mayors web site has a fairly detailed list of how each city and town would spend money to create jobs, if such money is to be allocated: MainStreet Economic Recovery Report

It appears to be mostly public works, construction, and infrastructure development type work. It also looks like there are many more millions (billions) of dollars being asked for than will be available. Still, it is good to see the large numbers broken down into individual projects. It will be interesting to see how much of this gets funded and how much of an effect it will have on unemployment short and long term.

Of course, with the stimulus bill getting sliced and diced there may not be much local project funding left by the time it passes, if indeed it does.

(no subject)

I don't think it needs to be said that the bank bailout is idiotic. Actually, maybe it does. The bank bailout is idiotic for so many reasons. If a bank (or any company) is going to fail because it wastes money and makes bad decisions, let it fail. If it fails because those bad decisions lead not only to its own bankruptcy but that of millions of others, well that's just criminal. Let the damn banks die. Without intervention, many more will take their place and we'll all be better for it.

I would think it would be obvious that it is the wrong approach to prop up failed businesses that make bad decisions and thereby negate what free market capitalism is supposed to be about (ha ha ha). And yet, here we go, funding failure. At the very least there's the CEO salary cap. But they're not satisfied. It's not enough that we've bailed out their financial experiment gone awry. The CEOs of the financial institutions continue to complain about the $500k annual salary cap. Sorry guys, no sympathy.

OK, politics mode off. Bleaghghghhhhhh.