CNN Money Fortune reported January 16 that some economists say that the new federal stimulus spending probably isn't enough to fix the economy and that the financial system must be fixed first: Stimulus: Fix the banks first.  According to the article:

              "There's a real risk of policy not doing enough," says Lena Komileva, an economist at interdealer broker Tullett       
              Prebon. "The increased liquidity government has provided hasn't translated into improved credit flows."

Indeed, while the Federal Reserve and other central banks have vastly expanded the scope of reserves available to the banking system, banks remain leery of lending as asset prices continue to fall and many developed countries sink deeper into a recession.

Those trends, Komileva said, translate into a crisis of confidence about the solvency of borrowers on all sorts of loans. The crisis is particularly acute because consumer debt-to-income readings were setting records even before Lehman Brothers collapsed in September and sent the economy further into a tailspin.