And who can disagree?

Well, pretty much everyone who matters in our political leadership. There’s no stomach whatever for really taking on the big banks, either through forced downsizing or, as Paul Krugman would have it, tougher regulation aimed at making financial services more like the boring, profitable, plain vanilla sector it was from 1945-1980.

What we’ll get is a bit more regulation, a bit more “resolution authority” to wind up big domestic banks that get in trouble, and, as Johnson points out, absolutely nothing on the far more important issue of reining in cross-border banking. The banks will continue along their merry way until the next big bubble bursts.

Nobody in Congress likes what Wall Street has done, but everyone in Congress likes Wall Street money. So what matters in an election year is to be seen to be doing something, but not too much.

That’s why the Know Nothings, having realized a bit too late that there’s no political advantage to be had from defending the banksters, will go along with some sort of bill, and the President, thrilled at last to have some bipartisanship, will make sure the bill is watered down sufficiently as to be meaningless.

Gorilla says: “Wall Street is selling CDOs on the spoons we still haven’t hidden!”

Paul Krugman also has a useful note on the Spanish problem.

The more or less solvent Northern Europeans (Germany and the Netherlands) once again are faced with having to bail out the so-called PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain).

Johnson’s great fear is a speculative attack on the Euro, followed by a cataclysmic event like the Germans or Greeks leaving the Eurozone.

He believes the banks there, and the banks here, are too weak to stem the inevitable losses that will come.

Krugman sees the Spanish difficulty as emblematic of a currency union that’s not working.

The US, as usual, seems to be in cloud cuckooland, fantasizing that more robust growth is just around the corner.

Consumer and business demand say this is utter nonsense.

Will our undercapitalized banks be back at Uncle Sam’s trough if the dollar carry trade suddenly goes the other way?

Gorilla’s only slightly more optimistic: “Simon says, and Brussels pays!”

1) Pass the Senate bill as is, come back and fix it later.

2) Pass nothing, forget about passing anything in the forseeable future, and be punished in November.

The Senate bill is lousy in many respects, but it’s the only bill on offer.

Now that the Republicans have a veto-enabling minority in the Senate, there’s absolutely no chance they’ll back any legislation of any kind for the rest of Obama’s term.

So, if you’re a Congressperson, you can run away and hide, wait for a diffident President to decide to lead, or hold your nose and vote for the first step towards comprehensive, universal health care.

Go to the polls, and you’ll find that most Americans support universal health care and are willing to make the sacrifices necessary to see it happen.

Are House Democrats ready to join them?

Gorilla says: “They’re all a load of cobblers, but 218 may decide to stick their neck out and gobble up a surefire vote winner!”

In essence, Krugman argues that cap and trade has worked before and should therefore work again with respect to carbon emissions. Hansen argues that cap and trade doesn’t do enough, and that a carbon tax is the only way to make fossil fuels obsolete over time.

There’s a bit of irony both ways: Krugman, an economist, is saying that politics make a carbon tax impossible and that cap and trade can achieve the goal of reducing emissions. Hanson, a climate scientist, argues that unless fossil fuels are made more expensive there won’t be enough incentives to make alternatives economically viable.

And they’re both right. It does come down to the perfect (taxation) being the enemy of the good (cap and trade), provided you assume (as Krugman does) that the Congress will do something soon to set up a cap and trade system.

Gorilla isn’t so sure: “I doubt the Senate will go along with anything that upsets Big Coal and Big Oil! Doing nothing about climate change is the default option until things get really bad: see health care reform!”

Brad de Long says there’s a 5 percent chance of a Great Depression-like downturn, bigger than the one we’ve just experienced.

Martin Wolf says we’ve again missed the boat on speaking plainly to the Chinese.

Today’s numbers say that, despite wasting billions on cash for clunkers and home buying tax credits, deflation remains a big problem, the housing bust will continue, oh, and unemployment remains above 10%.

The need for action is very clear, but that’s not what our leaders are offering.

Instead, they seem worried about utterly trivial things, from an extra $100 billion/year to expand health insurance to social program deficits in the years after 2030.

Anything in the here and now appears to be well beyond their imaginations.

Goingbackwardville and Movingforwardville are currently intersecting in Oblivionville.

Congress should be passing a second stimulus, to the tune of at least $1 trillion ($2-3 trillion would be even better!), with emphasis on the following: job creation via a new WPA with emphasis on road building, home and corporate energy efficiency, and public transit, guaranteeing state government deficits for the next 3 years, and continuing unemployment and unemployed health care benefits for the next 2 years.

The President needs to start leading, not engaging in further meaningless rhetoric and cautious poll gazing.

Gorilla is worried: “Round tables don’t put food on the table, and pointy heads only burrow deeper into the sand!!!”

Answer: It isn’t better, it’s worse. But the banks are largely insolvent now and they still haven’t come clean on their balance sheets. So even the traditional model won’t save them from themselves. Goingbackwardville is all the Fed has to offer.

Gorilla answers: “Spell TALF and TARP backwards, and you’ll understand banking policy in Movingforwardville!”

Krugman has a good analysis of what the job figures mean (sort of).

Gorilla says: “A blip is as good as we get for the moment, let’s hope the sonar pinpoints a ship off the bottom”.

So, it’s back on the jets and into the limos for global leaders everywhere.

The Europeans want us to do more, we want the Chinese and Indians to do more, and so everyone does nothing more.

What’s curious to Gorilla is why our green President is now directing his regulators to pursue “speculators” who have allegedly jacked up the price of oil.

Heck, even Paul Krugman smells a rat!

Shouldn’t we be encouraging the highest possible prices for fossil fuels, rather than passing toothless frauds like Waxman-Markey?

Wouldn’t that do more to help reduce global warming and carbon consumption than any number of canapes served by the likes of Berlusconi?