Unemployment + Falling Incomes beget falling consumption, tightening credit markets due to higher delinquencies on credit of all kinds (mortgages, commercial real estate, student loans, credit cards, etc.), contraction of global trade as protectionist measures increase, and an ever-widening budget deficit as a result of reduced income tax revenue and increased spending on public social services and bail-outs.
Pumping govt $$ into the system to stop the rise of unemployment ultimately yields inflation, driving up interest rates and dampening recovery efforts. The last thing we need right now is more stimulus money. The government has exhausted its arsenal.
It's time for capitalism to return to the stage in all its entrepreneurial glory. I'm talking a return to the Gilded Age of Carnegie, Vanderbilt, and Rockefeller...the days when the wealthy elite actually worked for their money. Our only hope for recovery has to come from real investment. I'm not talking about financial engineering (this derivative or that credit swap). I'm talking about honest to goodness spending by businesses and the elite rich on real economic goods. Entrepreneurs and businesses with existing cash need to create new industries that will put people back to work. For lack of other ideas and since it just makes practical sense to minimize our impact on the earth's environment, I'm proposing a focus on a Green Revolution.
QUIT RELYING ON GOVERNMENT HAND-OUTS!
Come one, come all, ye super-elite -- Step up to the plate and save our future, both economically and environmentally. You've sat on your liposuctioned laurels, feeding off a system of executive over-compensation and poker-game investment strategies, for far too long. There are few safe investment havens these days anyways, so how about forking over some change and try "entrepreneuring" (a.k.a. "working")? Ultimately, you'll head new billion dollar industries, recouping and compounding your investments. For your sweat and labor, you'll likely gain a legacy of greatness to boot (when was the last time an honorary statue was built for a Wall Street investment banker?).
Meanwhile, all you cash-hording companies need to relax and start spending on something other than CEO salaries! (Standard & Poor has reported that cash levels, which have historically stood ~$640 billion since 2004, shot to $700 billion in Q2 2009. Think of that as a $60 billion stimulus if businesses would just open the coffers and stop hording!).