Few economists now doubt that private household spending and corporate investment will rescue the economy on their own. The debate now lies in the scale and scope of the government’s intervention, as the only institution with the access to capital, macroeconomic scope, and investment horizon needed to jump-start the labor market, keep production cycles from seizing up, and create the necessary conditions for manageable lending and spending to resume.

A visual schematic of America’s stimulus dollars at work, as proposed under the recently approved House bill…

The frightening this about this table isn’t lavish CEO pay after record bank losses, nor the 9-figure scale of the payouts, but just how closely the bailout money matches the total bonus pool in almost every case. Granted, base compensation in investment banking is nearly equivalent to the minimum wage, but there are a lot of people – roughly 3.6 million in America alone – that would jump at the chance to make $150,000 for 90 hour work-weeks, if only they could…

This TED talk by mathematician Steven Strogatz “shows how flocks of creatures (like birds, fireflies and fish) manage to synchronize and act as a unit when no one’s giving orders”. The parallels to market behavior and financial panic are implicit but obvious. We often perceive of our decisions during a crisis as unique and self-preservational, but the tendency toward spontaneous order is a powerful impulse. Coordinated reaction to natural threats, be it a hungry seal or predator hawk, can often increase a group’s biological fitness and probility of survival, while a coordinated reaction to financial crises can actually amplify individual risk – like Strogatz’s example of London’s Millenium Bridge – and only make matters worse…