Let old banks die, use the money to start new banks

Paul Romer suggests using the TARP money to just start new banks rather than throwing good money after bad in bailing out banks that are full of toxic assets.

Tom Philpott, over at Gristmill promises to discuss other banking models. He links to Martin Wolf at the Financial Times who writes, "a sizeable proportion of [U.S.] financial institutions are insolvent: their assets are, under plausible assumptions, worth less than their liabilities."

The Independent reverses its opinion of pot.

The Independent, which was an active campaigner for the shift in status from Class B to Class C for cannabis, now reverses its stance and issues an apology.

Congressional Budget Office declares Obama plan is worse than doing nothing.

The CBO reported on Wednesday that Obama's economic recovery package will actually hurt the economy more in the long run than if he were to do nothing, by .1 to .3% GDP. CBO does report the Senate bill would produce between 1.4 percent and 4.1 percent higher growth in 2009 than if there was no action, but the cost beyond the near term into the medium term would exceed the benefit.

I recall during the ill-advised steel tariff, Mickey Kaus pointing out that the cost per job saved was around a quarter million per job.

This "stimulus" is in the same ballpark. Given the most generously small package, $750 billion and the most generous jobs creation figure 4.1 million, I get $183,000 per job saved. Given that maximal job production at optimal spending is unlikey, the quarter million figure is probabaly more accurate.

With that kind of money, you could pay people not to work until the next recession. Rinse and repeat.