Seems to mirror the proportion of federal budget pork that comes our way, an issue our representatives need to work on. Contrast us with Alaska (or any red state) on the amount of pork per capita we receive... it's not fair, and it's not pretty.

Maybe some of the infrastructure stimulus can pay for much-needed Sellwood and I-5 bridge projects... aw, who am I kidding, there's probably a trillion-dollar bridge that needs to be built somewhere in remote Alaska.

TKrueg, I heard an analyst comment that the Big Dig cost 22 billion and provided 5,000 jobs. Don't expect to see much of that 30 billiion over 2 yrs hear in the NW.

Hey. Umpqua was happy to loan some of that money to me to refinance my house at 4.75% - a significant savings from my 6.25% original loan. Shorter term, lower interest rate, lower payments. And we closed in less than 20 days.

TARP funds are just to pad the pockets of the bank execs who made piss poor loan decisions. Small businesses like mine will never see a dime of it, and we are the ones who need it the most.

The Whole World Is Rioting as the Economic Crisis Worsens -- Why Aren't We?, By Joshua Holland, AlterNet, February 3, 2009.

Explosive anger is spilling out onto the streets of Europe.

The Telegraph (UK) warned last month that protests over governments' handling of the crisis "are widespread and gathering pace," and "may spark a new revolution":

A depression triggered in America is being played out in Europe with increasing violence, and other forms of social unrest are spreading. In Iceland, a government has fallen. Workers have marched in Zaragoza, as Spanish unemployment heads towards 20 percent. There have been riots and bloodshed in Greece, protests in Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary and Bulgaria. The police have suppressed public discontent in Russia and will be challenged again at large gatherings this weekend.

Consider a snapshot of a single week of unrest ...

America Is Completely Broke, And Here We Are Funding Fantasy Wars at the Pentagon, By Chalmers Johnson, Tomdispatch.com, February 3, 2009.

... crisis exists when it comes to the military-industrial complex. That crisis has its roots in the corrupt and deceitful practices that have long characterized the high command of the Armed Forces, civilian executives of the armaments industries, and Congressional opportunists and CRIMINALS looking for pork-barrel projects, defense installations for their districts, or even bribes for votes.

Given our economic crisis, the estimated trillion dollars we spend each year on the military and its weaponry is simply unsustainable. Even if present fiscal constraints no longer existed, we would still have misspent too much of our tax revenues on too few, overly expensive, overly complex weapons systems that leave us ill-prepared to defend the country in a real military emergency. We face a double crisis at the Pentagon: ...

Recently, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen began to advocate nothing less than protecting the Pentagon budget by pegging defense spending to a fixed percentage of gross domestic product (GDP, the total value of goods and services produced by the economy). This would, of course, mean simply throwing out serious strategic analysis of what is actually needed for national defense. Mullen wants, instead, to raise the annual defense budget in the worst of times to at least 4% of GDP. Such a policy is clearly designed to deceive the public about ludicrously wasteful spending on weapons systems which has gone on for DECADES.

It is hard to imagine any sector of the American economy more driven by ideology, delusion, and propaganda than the armed services. Many people believe that our military is the largest, best equipped, and most invincible among the world's armed forces. None of these things is true, but our military is, without a doubt, the most expensive ...

The Post Office might cut off 1 day of every 6 days it delivers -- because it was $3 Billion short of funds last year. $3 Billion is ONE DAY of Military; less than 1 LIARS week in Iraq ... so BRING THEM HOME A WEEK EARLY. And save the Post Office.

Okay, it's a large effort to read the details of how our taxes plumped and paid the 60-year dictatorship build-up whose boot now squashes us and defiles life on Earth.

So simply cut to the chase: KNOW the ENEMY: Military ANYthing.

Always was. Is now. Will be until we stop it, drop the fear, and roll up the Pentagon.

---
Some say Deep Recession is coming.
Some say a Great Depression is coming.
I'm saying a Killing Oppression is coming.

And TOGETHER we can overcome and stop it.

(NOT by chickensh!t Blumenauer and Wyden, though, and probably NOT Merkley, yet unknown. Hint: STOP throwing money at it. Throw your lifetime at it.)

Gee, not a single credit union on the list, my, my. I hate banks, I hated them before this fiasco. I had to deal with a bank today, I had a large check made out to me that I took to the bank upon which it was written and asked if it was good and that I wanted to cash it. They tried to charge me $5 to cash it - my wife threw a FIT, I'm sure that the cops were almost called. These pigs, it's my money not theirs, it's written on their bank, the money was in the account, if I had deposited it at my credit union there would not have been a charge. I hate banks and it doesn't bother me when they fail. They are leeches in my opinion.

How much TARP money was used to fund the bailout of WaMu aka the takeover by chase? That's a rather large PNW bank IIRC

Chase is not based in the Pacific Northwest. This listing goes by the home of the recipient, not the home of a failed target bank.

The e.g., 'creative class' of X-gen Christoph Niemann.