Boxers or Briefs?

The answer is: NEITHER!
Simply stated: This Emperor Has NO Clothes.

ITEM 1:
Preview of the New York Times analysis to be dated 2/10/09

FIASCO

The much anticipated new bank bailout is the worst yet, led by even more incompetence and more arrogance than the previous bunch of Treasury Clowns. Too bad these colossal jokers continue driving our economic train down the path towards a terrible economic train wreck.

ITEM 2:
From Barron's 2/9/09, Randall Forsyth writes:

"the cost of insuring US Treasury debt for 5 years increased to a record 82 basis points on Friday, up 15 basis points in a day."

Remember, please remember...
Watch bonds, not the stock market. The costs of insuring US Sovereign Debt (BONDS) are ratcheting up and up relentlessly.

Trillion dollar spending plans + trillion dollars of bailout plans = no possible way to EVER payoff this debt.

ITEM 3:
Again, from Barron's issue dated 2/9/09:

"The nation must stop living in denial of the mistakes of both parties.
Spreading failure across the entire economy risks turning a recession into a depression."

The financial engineers of these economic blunders remain in firm control of the apparatus of the FED, the US Treasury, the US Congress, and the office of the President.

SUMMARY
At a national level, the electorate has replaced "Dumb" with "Dumber". They prance and dance before the world, in splendid ignorance of economic consequences resulting from their actions, all the while doing it without either boxers or briefs... naked to all except the acolytes of the pandering press and leviathan government.

CONCLUSION:

Expect the continuing economic debacle to become worse than you imagine. This Emperor ain't got no clothes.

State Capture

Proponents of Idiocy

The concept of State Capture is worth some web-surfing, and some further understanding. Readers are encouraged to pursue some links they find for themselves about State Capture. It is becoming more and more evident, this is already a fait accompli in the US.

Now the third successive US administration (Clinton-Bush-Obama) is clearly operating with the same faces and forces at the top of the government's main financial entities (FED and Treasury). Read and re-read the above link if in doubt.

Untold Trillions of Dollars are continually being expropriated from taxpayers and redistributed to Wall Street and DC insiders through successive administrations.

When the state is captured, the markets and democracy become no more than appealing fiction. It's clear the American public wants no part of the impossibly huge spending plans of the new administration and the last administration... yet, because of State Capture, the looting continues.

That the hugely misguided Trillion Dollar deficit spending bill is paraded and parroted by proponents of fiscal idiocy as "stimulus", evidences the degree of State Capture.

Extraordinary Insight

From Wikipedia — Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds: (by Charles MacKay)

“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one!”

“Of all the offspring of Time, Error is the most ancient, and is so old and familiar an acquaintance, that Truth, when discovered, comes upon most of us like an intruder, and meets the intruder’s welcome.”

If you haven't read this book... it was published about 150 years ago, yet still rings true.

When will the American public (crowds) recover their senses? Wish I knew... but the matters with which we are dealing are truly economic madness.

Lose-Lose Situation

The continuing lavish layering of debt-upon-debt-upon-debt by the US Congress and the FED mean only one thing to those with dollar assets: lose-lose.

PORKZILLA ---- eeeek!

Trashing through the US economy, like Godzilla smashing Tokyo, "Lookout, here comes Porkzilla!" This gargantuan monster, being created in Washington DC and otherwise known as the stimulus package, will make all previous exercises in government pork look puny. Porkzilla will, as advertised, be hugely bigger and more grotesquely larded than any previous spending monster unleashed from the masters of economic malfeasance in American history.
Porkzilla will be advertised as a friendly and helpful monster, but make no mistake. By it's sheeer size and magnitude, it will wreak destruction and chaos unmagined by it's creators.
The masters of debt, aka your government, is about to shove Porkzilla out the door and into your life and that of the entire economy. Imagine hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars created out of purest fantasy being gleefully misallocated before your very eyes, smashing and trashing economic order into bungled chaos. Porkzilla! Beware...

Terribly Serious

The link which follows is terribly and deadly serious.
Bernake's Certain Failure
It's a long read, quite detailed, yet cuts to the chase; gets to the heart of the matter. If you read nothing else this month about the crisis... READ THIS!

It's Hitting The Fan...

Seems push is coming to shove. The devastating world-wide pile-up of unsold consumer goods has now spread to commercial goods. Not to be too alarmist, but this is without precedent since the 1930's.
Trade Crunch

And, Mr. Bernake and Co. are back at square one. With the erstwhile help of the US Congress, he and his DC spenders have now blown through about $3 Trillion since the summer of 2007. Yet... the toxic derivatives that are at the root of the systemic risks to the world's financial system remain! The FED and the Congress are trying to drive a stake through the heart of of these toxic monsters, but so far, all for nought.
Uncertainty About Value
What they are doing is throwing into the fan, more of what's been hitting the fan. Creating unprecedented amounts of government debt in the hopes of creating wealth is zombie economics: Prop-up the dead toxic debt and make it seem alive again.

And... zombie economics are being employed to prop-up zombie banks throughout the world. Rememeber, this is not about liquidity. It's about solvency.
Banks Spanked!