Howard here is wrong on the bailout.  Why is it that Howard Dean and others, among them our Representative Baird, are certain, so so certain, that failure to bailout the bank monopolies guarantees a depression?  Do they have a crystal ball?  Sometimes doing nothing is a solution and the right solution.

Bank failures do not guarantee a depression, Howard.  But mismanagement of taxpayer funds may very well be just the panicked reaction that guarantees such a calamity.  A depression that is a created out of dumping funds into a bottomless money pit caused by gross mismanagement within the banking industry, and the failure of the legislative and executive branches of the Federal government to properly regulate them.

Guess time will tell if these “experts” (snicker, snicker) are right.  No matter what happens, either these same “experts” will either have a new explanation for why we had to bankrupt our government trying to save a sinking ship that sunk anyway if they fail.  Or they will say if it works “I told you so, we had to rescue the bank monopolies and Wall Street out” even if the problem abated on its own or was fixed by an upturn in the housing market.  Must be nice to always be so sure you are right, even when you have no way to know that you are.  Heads I win, tails I win.

When are we going to stop being duped?

This is analogous to those who say the surge worked in Iraq even though it is quite likely other events were the real reason the crisis abated.  Since this financial crisis is about a loss of confidence in leadership and governance, will borrowed bailout money make the problem go away?

The rest of Dean’s remarks are right on the money, especially the importance of prekindergarten care to our future.