The most important thing you'll read tonight:

From Jerome a Paris (Eurobtrib)

eithner & co are now saying that this is necessary to save the system - which is wholly untrue: what they are doing is trying to save those that bet against AIG (ie Goldman Sachs et al.), by honouring, wihout cause, AIG's commitments with taxpayer money. And what's more annoying is that they're not even talking about that - they're still talking about the toxic assets that banks supposedly hold, and that everybody sane in the financial markets has already discounted down to their true value, ie close to zero - the second-order problem in that mess.

Again: the bigger problem is not worthless assets, it's unlimited liabilities on all the financial bets that were made.

What is so depressing is that money is being thrown at banks in the guise of solving the asset problem, when it goes to not solving the liabilities problem (because it's so much bigger) - and that markets know that it's not solving anything (they have the liabilities on their books, and guess that others have the same).

What is depressing is that this money - staggering amounts of money - is being wasted when it could be used in ways that actually help the economy (hell, giving a $40,000 check to every living American would be a way smarter use of the same money).

What is so depressing is that the goal still seems to be to save banks when it should be to save the economy.

What is depressing is that people are again being steamrolled into "bailouts" - 5 years after being steamrolled into a war against mushroom clouds by essentially the same people - and the Serious People are still wrong, utterly wrong.

What is depressing is that it's happening despite a smart Democrat being president.

What is depressing is that each day that goes by makes the problem noticeably worse. More bailouts. More unemployment. More avoidable economic - and personal - pain. And that this pain has irreversible consequences - people dropping out, people unable to pay for healthcare, people losing their homes, families broken, etc...

What is most depressing is that the problems - and the solutions - have been on the internets for months, but are not listened to, let alone implemented.

What is depressing is that Serious People still see solutions (single payer healthcare, higher minimum wages, investment in infrastructure and smart energy, redistribution) as evil because they sound like Socialism or - gasp - solidarity.