Zandar's Thought Of The Day

Brad at Sadly, No!:

Here’s the deal, dudes: if the economy is not recovering by mid-2010, you can kiss the Democrats’ hold on the House of Representatives bye-bye. If the problem persists beyond that, you can say hello to President Moose-Eater in 2012.

The point is, cleaning up the banking system has to be the Obama administration’s #1 priority. If they fail at that, then every other worthwhile initiative — from national health care to investments in green energy — will fall by the wayside and the country will be even worse off than it is right now.

And he's right.

And you know what? With the Helicopter Ben and Timmy The Invisible Boy show going on, Obama will never be able to fix the economy. These guys are recycling the same ideas that failed six months ago, and it's so obvious even the morons on Wall Street can figure it out. And what are Democrats in Congress doing? Holding hearings on whether or not banks should be allowed to lie about how much their toxic assets are worth and should be able to overvalue them in order to restore confidence in the financial system.

Lying to restore confidence. What a brilliant idea. Here's your plan.

1. Get rid of Geithner, Bernanke, and Larry Summers. One possible replacement, KC Fed President Tom Hoenig.
2. Enact Plan N.
3. Get the rest of the world to go along with Plan N. (Hey, the UK's not ruling out Plan N, kids.)
4. Reconstruct the financial system minus the idiots who lost us trillions.

Only then will we be able to climb out of this mess.

[UPDATE] At this point, GOP Senators are calling publicly to let big banks fail rather than keep propping them up with money.

Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., ranking member on the Banking Committee, said the United States should not mimic Japan, which in the 1990s propped up failing banks and prolonged its economic downturn.

"Close them down, get them out of business. If they're dead, they ought to be buried," Shelby told ABC's "This Week" program. "We bury the small banks. We've got to bury some big ones and send a strong message to the market."

Financial authorities have been under increasing fire as hundreds of billions of dollars of loans and capital infusions into distressed institutions have failed to halt the economic downturn, which has only accelerated in recent weeks.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who remains a party leader after losing the 2008 White House race to President Obama, criticized the new administration's response to the banks.

"I don't think they made the hard decision and that is to let these banks fail," McCain told "Fox News Sunday."

These are tremendous words. There's no doubt in my mind that the political viability window for Plan N is now wide open.

Time to do it.