Anonymous, I read your post twice and still don't know what the hell you are talking about.

I think I understand what 17:54 is talking about. Baker has an elitist, birds eye take on human misery, I think that's the only way you can be broadcast to web outlets. He isn't calling for anyone to be arrested, when, the entire bubble and subsequent recession was caused by fraud.
In 2008 the current downturn would have been more severe because CEPR would have had their funding cut. But since the Banks, with their subprime bets and elaborate swindles would have been swept away - you'd have the abilityr for people to stay in their fraudulently appraised homes. The Gubbmint could have started a massive WPA type program. The problem is Baker is working for Ford (etc). He's a liar, and not a progressive at all.

"While we should all be thankful that we are not in a second Great Depression, just as we should be thankful that the world has not been destroyed by nuclear war, the "Great Depression" defense is a tool of fools and liars."

Thank you. This is a correct understanding & evaluation of the bogeyman and bogey-women that haunt us through the media's complicity with the hollow language perpetually and robotically excreted by the U.S.government. The media is the mouthpiece of our right wing, neoliberal government of true believing Friedmanites. The same insane logic was used regarding Bush and Cheney protecting us from "another terrorist" attack." In this day and age, it's not what you do that matters, but what doesn't happen. We try to define our worth by the lack of tragedy. What a tragedy.

The Republicans have always wanted to take as much money as possible from the average person and give it to corporations. That is what "shrinking government" is really about. Take out every government program that helps people and replace it with programs that enrich corporations. But they also have rigged the laws to give corporations as many advantages as possible, and they rigged the courts in the same way. Unfortunately, too many Democrats have gone along with some or all of these tactics. The bank bailouts were just the latest and most spectacular example. If the health care bill is passed, that will be another example. And they are trying to do the same thing with the energy bills. Is there anything we can do? Short of a revolution, I don't think so, especially with the recent Supreme Court decision to allow corporations to completely control the government by flooding campaigns with money. Where does that money come from? From us, of course, in the form of goods and services we buy as well as tax dollars. We could defeat them by refusing to buy anything from huge corporations, but it's almost impossible to function in these times if you do that. We could defeat them by refusing to work for them, but then most of us would have no job. So I think the end of civilization will be inevitable, as the corporations consume everything and we simply implode.

It's called CAPITALISM, folks. Doing exactlly what it is designed to do, rape the public of everything worthwhile, hoping it's administrators have at least the good sense of dogshit to at least control their canibalistic greed to keep it from going over the edge into the abyss. Alas, they repeatedly demonstrate total lack of self control to even save their own ass. Staying the course and the public will not forever be around to bail them out.
Capitalism: The root of all evil.
~John L.

In an another article of Baker's - he tries to make a case for just walking away from an underwater mortgage, This is advice that banks are starting to take a lot of interest in. It may be a final way for mega-banks to profit from their extortion. What's missing from 2010 articles in general (and from a quasi-corporate pipe like CEPR) is talk of how appraisers, real estate agents, mortgage companies and even regulators conspired to rape millions of Americans. Will Baker write about John C Dugan or Larry Summers? (We need more articles about these a$$holes)

Baker: Gee, why didn't Obama think of that?

He just proposed a lot of the things you mentioned. Yes we need more but let's get what he has on the table done. We are up against the worst Democracy thrashers we've seen in this Country.

Also, we all need to rethink and re-blast the people responsible for this what, "mini crash"? It is certainly big enough for me. Jon Kyl was interviewed by NPR the day after the State of the Union speech. He groused that Obama should stop talking about the state of affairs he inherited. He didn't say and do what.

The message is we are supposed to forget what these crooks and criminals did to America. What an altogether absurd thing to say but some will people will no doubt agree with him, even here. The thing is no one will ever forget this "mini crash." Just like the one in 1929, books will be written, studies will be done, people will be living with the result, for decades. We should never forget these criminals.

I think we should all tell these creeps that we will stop talking about their mess when all of it is cleaned up and America once again has a stabilized economy, rule of law is again our way of life, the crooks are out of power, we have true elections, we have a tolerant society, people are back to work, and we are once again a Democracy.

Don't let people like Kyl spin what we should think or do. Of course, we won't forget. No body will forget ever. We should cram that down these creeps throats just as they try to cram their agenda down ours. And we should start again to adhere to majority rule and take our Country back from these deluded people who still believe in Communism and the Sat. matinee thinking that they can rule the world.