1. An immediate corporate tax cut for companies that do not layoff workers. With a sunset provision and limit on executive compensation. Perhaps an additional tax cut to executives who cut their own management compensation.

Remember Charles Schwab cutting his compensation after 9/11? Leaders do the right thing in times like this. But giving them an added incentive might help.

There may not be a way to keep the public from cutting their spending, but this would go a long way to stopping “it’s the next depression” mentality in the collective mind. And yes, it must be all workers – this is a world wide crisis, and we are interconnected to everyone else. Remember what happened with Hawley Smoot – if we are protectionist, it gets worse for everyone, including us.

1. A moratorium on foreclosures and an executive order for lenders to workout the loans. Some cash flow is better than none. And it behooves the banks to work with employment agencies to get their borrowers back to work if need be. Perhaps an executive order that merged banks with employment agencies until the banks are solvent again… hmmm.

1. A massive short-term hiring program for “due diligence” – people need to sit down, mortgage by mortgage, tranche by tranche, swap by swap, and determine who owns what piece of the pie.

1. Rail now. Launch local, state and federal mass transit improvement and expansion programs. Keep people working, keep products moving. And with oil costs, the logical place to go here first is rail. This is leading to longer term solutions, but there are miles of unused track in this country, which is why I propose it first, as well as I believe it is one of the more viable long-term solutions we’ll need to address energy concerns.

Things that are already done:

1. Increase the deposit insurance.

Allow non-financial companies/entities in
good credit condition (A1/P1/F1) to borrow commercial paper from the FED (in
progress). When the state of California couldn’t make payroll, this was a must.