George Soros has written a well-argued piece in today’s paywalled FT. He’s an old bandit, but he is a clever old bandit. And his view is very simple: US debt has not caused any rise in their bond yields, therefore more QE is what’s required. Even if it fails, all will be well – but it won’t fail, because FDR proved in 1933 that it could be done.

I’m still mulling over George’s real agenda in writing this (there will be one, of that we can be sure) but either way, my first response to this is the same one I give to everyone using the 1933 parallel: please stop using the 1933 parallel, because it doesn’t apply.

Barack Obama is no FDR, and he enjoys a fraction of that President’s power. FDR didn’t have to deal with Hedge Funds, or heat from Beijing. The US debt in 1933 was minute set against today’s – as was the size of Government per se in the US. Back then, when the President said jump, folks jumped.

Today’s American business culture is different to that of the 1930s in two profound ways: first, FDR had been elected as a saviour with a commanding popular vote; and second, ethics were more abundant than they are today – people said God Bless America, and meant it. Even Joe Kennedy. Well, maybe not quite Joe Kennedy: but everyone else did.

Business in the US at the minute thinks Obama is an anti-business jerk. They’re right about the last bit, but the evidence utterly refutes the anti-corporate tag. Obama is the creature of banking and business, and we’re not talking dragons here. The point is this: there’s no respect there. Can you imagine Blankfein’s reaction if summoned to the White House and told to close his firm for a week? The President doesn’t have their respect – and the Republicans know he won’t use his mandate to justify firm action.

The right Presidential personality could overcome this, but Obama’s not the guy and never will be. It’s the second difference – the ethical desert out there – that will partially doom further fiscal stimulus.

The response to Bernanke’s heavy hints of further QE to come has not been one of “Great – let’s get America back to work”, but rather the more focused “Great – let’s buy some gold” and even “Great – let’s rack up the Dow and suck some more saps in”. This isn’t supposed to be the idea.

With a few more days to think about it, Goldman and Morgan and Cobbley and all will be putting together deals, products and rackets to make the most money they can out of taxpayers’ money. I mean – that’s what they did last time: why should this round be any different? Once Washington starts buying up bad assets, the risk-factor simply becomes more attractive for banks, and exit routes easier. If the Fed eases credit effectively, the banks will lend it to Big Business so it can go buy another Big Business and then lay off another 3,000 workers. And either way, as the real citizens out there get no nearer to a job, the bankers will keep on foreclosing, the property prices will keep on falling, so the lenders will give out even fewer mortgages and then house-prices will head for the sewer.

Again, the point is a straightforward one: what’s the point of taxpayer-funded (or indeed, any) fiscal stimulation, if its purpose is perverted by the economic Establishment? The very fact of corporate America having the biggest cash mountain in its balance sheets for 46 years tells you that the problem is not how to get cheap investment to business by giving it cheaper money: CEOs are already papering their boardrooms with the stuff.

And this brings me to the second reason QE will fail: it is the wrong methodology. Yes alright, I know The Slog’s been plucking this harp for months now, but maybe it’s time for me to put some amplification on the harp. My points are I think clear:

1. As this stimulus will be very much to the benefit of business and banking, they must step up to the plate this time. (It’s not as if they’re on the breadline)

2. As all the eased credit tends to simply worsen the obesity of the big boys, let’s not do QE: let’s do something like FDR did: get some infrastructure and innovation research projects on the go. God knows, enough of them are underfunded.

The fundamental thought underpinning this change of stimulant is as follows. Big American banks and corporations have shown not the slightest interest in getting people back in work, beyond ritual moaning about how the Democrats couldn’t run a whist drive.  The multinationals are not investing in tomorrow, they’re giving it out in shareholder dividends, directorial bonuses, and bumper profits to keep Wall St happy. This in turn keeps the share price up, and ensures the stockholders at the top make even more money out of high unemployment and cheap (but strangely unavailable to Main St) credit.

The big idea here is, to be frank, compulsion. This will, I know, have the Commiefinder Generals out there firing off their six-guns. But those who don’t know how to behave in the interests of the greatest happiness of the greatest number must, I’m afraid, be taught. And that’s not communism or nasty Big Brother government, it’s Benthamism.

It’s also what FDR did – and why it succeeded all those years ago. But – as I pointed out at the start of this piece – the specifics would have to be tailored to today. The biggest of all differences between 1933 and 2010 is that a great many of those lost US jobs are never coming back. So a central plank of any stimulus should be draconian tax penalties being used to force corporate America into technological investment –  and hiring new folks to work on them. And, like it or not, a whole heap of their own and banking money going into this alongside that of the long-suffering taxpayer.

What I’m suggesting here is a sort of ASBO (Anti-Social Behaviour Order) be placed upon US business and commerce until it wakes up to the Bigger Picture and stops being so bloody selfish: the US needs more exports, new sectors and a return to socially responsible banking and credit. That’s not going to come from QE: it’s going to come from more freedom, strength and creativity from the White House.