Honey! I Shrunk the Economy!

The economy continues to shrink.  It's the 100th day of the Obama Administration, a benchmark which is convenient for the media but seems arbitrary and useless for the rest of us, but on this day, President Obama has to worry whether he has implemented enough steps to arrest the economic contractions.

Ironically, today is the shareholder's meeting for Bank of America.  Ken Lewis, the head of Bank of America, has been in his office for over 7 years.  And during those 7 years he has been part of a real estate boom and bust that has rocked and roiled the global economy.  Chances are, despite some shareholder activists, Lewis will remain the head of the company, the Dead Bank Walking, while complaining his salary and bonus is not high enough.

More important, however, is that President Obama has expressed optimism that the economic stimulus packages will create 2 to 3 million jobs.  That's great, except we are now at an unemployment rate far greater than 2 or 3 million.  

We have a long long way to go before we have figured out how to have a sustainable economy, not subject to the "wizards" of the financial industry's ideas to spread risk on lending practices or whatever other scheme they come up with that will cause our economic stability to crash down around us.  The first step is, during the next 100 days, for Congress to insert ear plugs and stop listening to the financial industry lobbyists.  Then pass legislation that mandates regulation of this industry so that they are not risking our money on Ponzi-like schemes where they and only they come out richer.

The first 100 days have been good, hopefully the next 100 get better.  

In the meantime, anyone know where the economy went?