The Bush surge, er, economic stimulus package, won't work because it does nothing to alleviate the underlying problem, which his political party in a frenzy of deregulation of the credit and banking industries caused in the first place. Was this part of their master plan? An attempt to get rid of the middle class. All the evidence points that way.

BY NOMI PRINS |Nomi Prins, a former investment banker, is a senior fellow at the public policy organization Demos and the author of "Other People's Money: The Corporate Mugging of America."

All the cheery bipartisan photo-ops accompanying the Bush-Congress stimulus package won't change the economic condition of the majority of Americans. That's because it's not based on reducing living costs. As long as expenses such as health care, traveling to work, tuition and carrying debt rise faster than average income, personal financial stability remains under attack.

Pride notoriously goes before the fall. In corporate economics, so does unregulated recklessness. Six years ago, the subprime mortgage market was a third of the size it is now. But as the stock market tanked and money became cheap, borrowers jumped at targeted campaigns extending credit at exorbitant, adjustable rates. Investment banks packaged their higher-interest loans, effectively trading the homes underlying these loans for profit (the more subprime the loan, the bigger the commission). We know how that story ended.

The same cycle is happening in the credit card market. First came exuberant marketing. According to market research firm Mintel International Group, credit card mail offers surged to 5.3 billion in 2007, up 41 percent in the first half of the year versus the first half of 2006. Direct mail to subprime borrowers doubled compared with 2005.