last country in the world, which will come out of recession. Apparently it is based solely on people’s opinions, but the fact, that basically 75%

of 100% USA citizens think, that recession is not over yet and 17% of them think, that it will not even be over until 2-3 years, is not realistic.

I have no idea, whether people have serious financial problems or they just don’t think realistically.

growing the optimists shouted. Even the most hard nosed dreamer has to except that the global economy has indeed farted.

Chancellor Alistair Darling does not plan fundamental reform of the structure of the system

that regulates UK financial institutions.
Mr Darling has said that the current regulatory system is not to blame for the credit crunch, blaming

instead the bosses of financial institutions.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8104340.stm

Unbelievable!

green shoots in the financial sector, if there even are any, do not mean a [...]

I couldn’t agree with you more. The entire thing is disgusting. Although some of the

regular and financial economists, like Nassim Taleb and Vince Cable, spoke up, they were studiously ignored. And the rest never seemed to notice.

Like you, I don’t think there is any reason at all for trusting the bankers. The data compiled by Eichengreen and O’Rourke show that this

depression and the one in 1929 are not too dissimilar (http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/3421).

Nothing has been done about job

creation, mortgage foreclosures, or business survival. Nor has anyone been indicted for the massive fraud that has gone on. The case of Deepak

Moorjani provides good reasons for us to be enraged – cf. http://thedukeofurl.wordpress.com/2009/05/28/deepak-moorjani-deutsche-bank-the-nyt/. The

claim that Brown is the only one to get the country through the recession is a joke.

In 1929 in the US, while the feds did nothing about

mortgage foreclosures, many states individually initiated moratoria. I think there may be a good reason, from the point of view of the bankers and

some politicians, that nothing be done because they hope to recreate the bubble, thinking that this will end the recession. Even should this

happen, this will only stave off the inevitable reckoning that must take place. And it is dangerous.

As you point out, such a “solution” is

only applicable to the financial sector, and it is a short-term fix in any case. The real economy is being squeezed. As Moggridge argues for the

Depression, structural reform and putting a substantial number of people to work, however artificially, is what is required. The notion that we

“can’t afford it” is absurd, as anyone familiar with the arguments of Keynes, Minsky, Moggridge, and a few others should be able to see. What we

can’t afford is to pretend that the debt can be paid down; it is too large – more money than the world possesses.

What will it take for

there to be an uprising? My take on the rage at MP’s expenses is that it is partly displacement activity due to the bankers not being punished by

the politicians who soon after the financial debacle were discovered lining their own pockets. People can’t get at the bankers, so they are

getting at the politicians who haven’t gone after the bankers.

I see no reason to think that Brown either will, or even can, change. And

Cameron has returned the Tories to Thatcherism, a disaster in the making. As one 20th century innovator once wrote, what is to be done?