In Which Zandar Answers Your Burning Questions

Paul W. asks in the comments where I took offense to the Obama administration being soft on the banks with today's news about the FDIC and Obama now looking to tax the banksters:

Do you want to walk that back a step or two now that the FDIC is taking 90 billion from the top fifty banks operating in the US?

Fair question.  Answers:

1)  It depends on what Obama and the FDIC decide to do with the money.  If it's not used for something stimulus-related and just used to reduce the deficit, it's rather pointless.  $90 billion should be used for a jobs bill or to save states from having to lay off nearly a million government employees in 2010.

2)  Timmy is already shooting down the proposals.  Not helping.

3)  This will have to go in front of Congress to be approved.  Needless to say, it'll die in the Senate.  Republicans are already attacking it.  Yes, it makes them look bad defending the banks.  It makes the Dems look worse if they can't even get something as obvious as this passed in an election year.  Remember cramdown?  Credit card reform?  The proposal to tax bonuses?  Financial sector reform is still floundering in Congress, too.  I don't expect this to get anywhere either.

It's like the Dems want to lose.