4.) none of the above.

The answer is... to create a genuine economy. Period. Until the trade deficit is put in some reasonable kind of balance, we will be borrowing to fill the gap.

All the rest of it is posturing and spin.

Posted by ttr at 03/17/2008

TTR is right. The three choices given are incredibly simplistic for a magazine that values thought over slogans. How about if we drop the "bail out" meme and create a few better choices, such as a massive program to fund research into alternative energy sources, rebuilding crumbling infrastructure, create real mass transit and light rail--and reeducate people who are suffering from consumerthink-- the notion that the tooth fairy will bring a tax-free solution to long-deferred problems.

Forget about the financial system. It's been broken for so long it should be in the Ripley's museum of bad ideas. It's essentially a system of plunder, and now's a good chance to demonstrate that.

Posted by wazoo at 03/17/2008

Our economy is fuled by well paying jobs. We can not conduct warfare on the working class without dire consequences.

Posted by champton at 03/17/2008

So I think it is unfair to think that the Nation thinks that the only options for fixing the economy are these three. But these three options are actually on the table right now. Of the three options, all of which are politically feasible right now, which do you think helps the most. How anyone answered 'bail out the banks' I don't know.

The 'we' in 'we will be borrowing to fill the gap.' needs to be filled in some. In an era of multinational firms and floating currencies we need to be more careful about how we talk about the trade deficit.

Posted by dentedpat at 03/17/2008

I'd settle for Perp-walking about half of Wall Street right into Federal prison for about 20 years each. On the way al of their assets could be seized and pooled to refund some of the massive paper losses they have used to bilk millions of Americans 401k and 403b retirement funds. Right behind them would be all of the Federal and state regulators that looked the other way and allowed this to happen...

Posted by NoPCZone at 03/17/2008

Finally, The Nation posts an article here about the War and Iraq as a linked issue! DUH! Why did it take so long?

Posted by ajdjr73 at 03/17/2008

The reality in this country is that corporations are slowly becoming the true citizens with the non-wealthy masses becoming just more resources to plunder for profits. They are allowed to go bankrupt while we are not. They are bailed out by the govt even after acting in probably criminal ways to extract as much wealth as possible. Their wealth is protected by the most powerful military the world has ever known. Make no mistake, our military is not meant to protect us. It is designed to protect against the transfer of wealth. Health care and protection against corporate abuse is the true 'military' of the people. Who cares if we're 'over there so that they don't follow us here' if you or your loved ones die prematurely of cancer? How much will this powerful military help you from having your job outsourced to another country for the sole purpose of raising corporate profits? We had better wake up before we find ourselves to be 'just another country'.

Posted by D1od1o at 03/17/2008

agree with Wazoo

Posted by tabatha at 03/18/2008

Nicholas von Hoffman's Economic Chaos, Political Consequences, says it simply can't be done. I'm glad the gentleman is a Pulitzer Prize losing author of thirteen books, including Citizen Cohn, and a columnist for the New York Observer; and not an economics engineer.

In fact, Economics 101 suggests that TTR is on the right track. There would have to be a series of steps to be taken and not create more chaos than exists... like reversing the "Trickle-down" economic policy to "Trickle-up."

Now another assertion is that there is no money to carry out any of the promises the politicians are making. This is NOT completely TRUE. Using dollars abroad may get us very little at this time, thus, it would affect any further war spending. But the economic system can also be self contained, wherein money added to the system is possible in order to balance the quantity of money to the available services and good that can be produced in the US. We may have lost a lot of industry, but we are still producing quite a bit.

Seriously abbreviating the solutions, here are two basic points that are the founding stones of our failed system, which must be changed to avert any further shenanigans:

1. Correct and reverse the nearly unregulated or loosely regulated, and frequently opaque money creation/expansion, and distribution methods, which are controlled and regulated by the elite few.

2. Nearly unregulated or loosely regulated transfer of money from one type of market to another

Economists want you to think that Money is a commodity. Well, to some extent it maybe, but only in the financial markets. In the consumer market it's still no more than a representation of the good and services available in the market for sale/purchase. It becomes a commodity if one has to go elsewhere to get it, even when those who will give it to you, can only do so based on the products and services that YOU and the REST of US have placed in the consumer market for sale... i.e.: labor, services, food, etc.

I'll stop now in the interest of keeping it short and relatively simple...

Posted by whit3hawk at 03/18/2008

4.) none of the above. we need to change the way we measure and define the economy, as well as other financial barometers. specifically there needs to be accounting for environmental damage. today's methods of measuring the economy are absurd and harmful : they encourage planned obsolescence, huge waste, and mass consumer spending on useless products, destroying precious natural resources. as a result, a growing economy actually makes us poorer! for example, the economy as it is defined today will tend to grow from having you replace your vacuum cleaner every three years, and shrink if you have one good vacuum cleaner that last thirty years. but as a nation, are we any richer from having bought ten vacuum cleaners instead of one? no! on the contrary, we are much poorer because of the waste and pollution that this overconsumption has created (not to mention the time that we've wasted). the government needs to institute 21st century accounting methods instead of the 18th century methods we use today. aside from that, we need a fairer tax code : one that doesn't favor capital gains over other forms of income, one that discourages board members from hoarding profits made on the backs of workers whose quality of life continues to diminish.

Posted by worldclass at 03/18/2008

How does bailing out an investment bank with 30 billion save the economy? I did see a comment about this on Countdown, asking why instead this money would not be used to save homeowners from foreclosure. But the third option, getting out of Iraq, is something that plainly not enough Americans see as an economic option. Hillary Clinton has noted in the debates that she wants to return to fiscal responsibility by ending the flow of dollars into the Iraq War. I am sure this has been echoed by Obama. They need to take this into the general election and confront McCain on this central issue. If there is anything good to come out of this, maybe it is an awakening, however slumbering, of an angry citizenry.

Posted by Jim Willingham at 03/18/2008

We had better wake up before we find ourselves to be 'just another country'. Posted by D1OD1O 03/17/2008 @ 10:06pm |

We are already just another corporatist country. Any pol not signed on to that project is eliminated, by force if needed.

Any move towards a healthier, less distorted economy would require a first step of ending a pointless war costing $265,000,000 a day, every day. Otherwise, forget it, we're finished. Those objecting too forcefully to this result will be marginalized or removed.

Posted by sloper at 03/18/2008

The economy is almost always in free fall at the end of any president's reign. Carter was a disaster. Reagan left Bush I a lot of problems, Bush I left Clinton problems that were just starting to come back when he left, Clinton left Bush II a hi-tech collapse, a plunging stock market, corporate scandals and rising unemployment. Now Bush II is leaving his successor a recession, a sub-prome mortgage disaster and skyrocketing gas prices. I believe a lot has to do with Wall Street's dislike for the unknown. Will the new president be pro-business, pro-Wall Street or anti? Will the new president raise taxes and credit rates? Will the new president be too Liberal for Wall Street? These are all unknowns and Wall Street hates the unknown.

And things are not always as they appear. Here's a good one: Every year that W has been president there have been less then 900 military deaths annually. Every year that Clinton was president the military deaths were over 2000!!! Without a war! Same with Carter and Bush the Elder. Now if someone can tell me how that is, I would love an explanation. Things are not always as they appear.

Posted by bean22 at 03/18/2008

Bean22, I think you need to cite your really ludicrous claim of over 16,000 American military deaths while Bill Clinton was in office. Are you counting WWII veterans who died of old age in the eight years that Bill Clinton was president?

Posted by D1od1o at 03/18/2008

The economy is almost always in free fall at the end of any president's reign. Carter was a disaster. Reagan left Bush I a lot of problems, Bush I left Clinton problems that were just starting to come back when he left, Clinton left Bush II a hi-tech collapse, a plunging stock market, corporate scandals and rising unemployment. Now Bush II is leaving his successor a recession, a sub-prome mortgage disaster and skyrocketing gas prices. I believe a lot has to do with Wall Street's dislike for the unknown. Will the new president be pro-business, pro-Wall Street or anti? Will the new president raise taxes and credit rates? Will the new president be too Liberal for Wall Street? These are all unknowns and Wall Street hates the unknown.

And things are not always as they appear. Here's a good one: Every year that W has been president there have been less then 900 military deaths annually. Every year that Clinton was president the military deaths were over 2000!!! Without a war! Same with Carter and Bush the Elder. Now if someone can tell me how that is, I would love an explanation. Things are not always as they appear.

Posted by bean22 at 03/18/2008

Just Google "Military Deaths since 1980" and you will see what I am talking about.

Posted by bean22 at 03/18/2008

be that as it may, the documented peace-time deaths were in error,

in fact the accurate figures are listed in comparison, below the FALSE EMAIL, Comments: The claim that there were more U.S. military fatalities during the Bill Clinton administration than there have been to date under George W. Bush is false. Moreover, that erroneous conclusion was based on falsified statistics.

Some of the current fatalities also include suicides, also not included are veteran suicides and fatalities from disease, recklessness, impaired states.

Posted by Jim Willingham at 03/19/2008

Yeah. Our oil, arms, and "bread and circuses" sensationalism addicted corporate crony macro-economy is in dire need of revolutionary change.

Posted by lewwelge at 03/19/2008

It goes without saying that we should leave Iraq but the mortgage mess is not a result of the war and those affected need to find something solid and helpful in order to get back on track. I am a big picture and inclusive person so I don't see all the details all the time but I know that our economy is now reaping the harvest that Reagonomics sowed. Americans with ill-paying jobs, no homelife and fraudulent mortgages need help now not when we end the fiasco in Iraq.

Posted by Hawkeye35 at 03/20/2008

Hillary is dishonest, plain and simple...no amount of mud-slinging and underhanded tactics will ever change her sleazy ways, just like her main NY supporter Eliot Spitzer, they are all sleazy, crooked, lying politicians, who will say anything to get over the top...it doesn't matter that you cannot believe a word coming out of their mouths..thanks for neutral reporting, CNN......fat chance this will make it on the blog....

Spread outright blatant lies, get a boost....try to "fix" something you created, whether it is NAFTA or Iraq mess....cry about how life is so unfair, get a boost....makes me (almost) want to vote for senile crazy McCain, at least he is interesting if not totally bonkers.....

Why don't we have some pompous fat*)* airhead calling for dems to vote for mccain, like cnn seems to print all of vicodin addict limbaugh's most recent rantings???? How about the Paris Minute...or Britney blog....

Of course, the war hinders economic growth, bush's '09 budget cut most of envir. funding, and water restoration act....ensuring we will have an environmental crisis, and ignoring ethanol pollution contributing to dead zone in gulf...I could go on and on.....

Please, somebody get through to CNN, that filtering dialogue impedes progress and is not democracy.....you cannot say you are objective and then just toss any criticism of your "anointed" candidate.....to make the comments seem one-sided.....there are simple minded individuals who would fall for this....

Posted by jrs112 at 03/20/2008

Yeah, while inflated housing prices and Reaganomics are components of our "eternal war" economy, and the chicken hawks of Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Lebanon, and the failed drug war are coming home to roost because no one in power seriously considered Ike's warning against the "military industrial complex" which has now metastasized into the current "prison industrial" and media-education driven conflicted/litigation schizoid society most accurately represented by noir films like "Blade Runner," or other such dystopias, I nevertheless like the fact Kucinich endorsed Obama and Edwards hasn't attempted to subvert his seemingly genuine message of hope; and therefore I'm supporting Steven Colbert's write-in candidacy. NOT!

Posted by lewwelge at 03/20/2008

How 'bout that, now we learn that Obama's passport records were breached in time for HRC to receive detailed data on his trips abroad. How convenient. And familiar.

It's a tried & true GOP dirt tactic, in which Billary are well versed & clearly on the beneficiary end this time around, their true alliances with the GOP made clear with their endorsement of McCain over their own party. Billary are well aware of where they make their millions these days & in years to come, and they are not about to bite the hands that feed them, the same hands that pull the GOP strings.

What baffles, perhaps, is why most of the Democratic party leadership (read: Super Delegates) are so silent on Billary's sabotaging of the party, particularly by Billary's backing McC. Might this be explicable by their being on the same payouts pad?

Some of those Super Ds should, at the very least, be publicly calling for release of HRC's tax returns now, as well as the release of the donor list to the Clinton library ... where do those hundreds of millions come from? and what do wealthy supporters get in return? These are questions that HRC must answer now, as these are rather more important questions than where Obama travels when he travels abroad (hardly in secret). However, if travels are so important, let's see Billary's far more extensive travel records since '00 as well ... then match those to the multi-million dollar "donations" from foreign sources.

That'll be the day, eh what?

Posted by sloper at 03/21/2008

With all due respect Mr. Willingham, I still do not see how there could have been more non combat deaths every year during Clinton's years, then combat deaths during Bush's years. There is no reason they should even be close. Unless of course Bush is dealing with a greatly reduced overall military that is 1/4 the strength of Clinton's. And don't even get me started on U.S. highway deaths, medical mistake deaths or hand gun deaths. One could make the case that people are safer in Baghdad then on our roads or in our hospitals.

Posted by bean22 at 03/22/2008