The first paycheck of around $600/adult and $300/child is about to come in the first week of May as announced by the President. So if you are average family you will get 1200 for a couple and 600 for two children totalling $1800 from the government to go out and spend so that you can boost the economy.

This is just a farce by the US government to show that they are doing something to improve the economy. US is facing a very severe economic situation and printing extra paper money to hand out is not the solution.

What are the odds that a cash strapped family facing foreclosure is going out and spend that little extra money it's getting from the government to improve the sales in the store and in turn boosting the economy? I think very minimal chances.

With oil prices hitting $4 (it's already hit that mark in some area in San Francisco), food prices sky rocketing, jobs going out to some other country, dollar value heading south (because of Fed's decreasing the rates) and no solid strategy to improve housing market the US is in really bad situation economically.

Our President can deny that we are not in the recession but the truth is that we are and we are in a long long recession. Globalization is playing its role and it won't be easy to keep jobs in US and still making profits due to high labor cost here.

I think the government should take solid steps to boost the economy and not think about bailing out big banks. In my opinion the following steps from the government can really make a huge difference:

• Don't reduce the interest rate so that inflation remains under control
• Ask banks to extend the period of loan rather than increasing monthly payment when the rates adjust to a new high level. This will help people save their houses.
• Give incentives to companies for creating jobs in US
• Put extra tax on companies that create huge profits by outsourcing jobs.
• Put regulations on bank that certain part of the cheap credit available to them should be made available for mortgage.
• Don't waste money in war and use that to improve deficit.
• Learn how to live within the means and not overstretch the budget thinking that they can print as much money as needed.
• Stop bailing out banks and let them pay for their wrong decisions.

I believe that above steps are necessary to improve the current economic situations. What do you think?