From aaronrothbaum:

"As far as culpability for the crisis and prosecuting people, you should understand how widespread the mismanagement was. Many people who were selling mortgages were basically systematically lying about the riskiness of the loans they were giving out (look up 'Lyers loans'). People who were assessing the risk up the chain were basing their calculation on past default rates, but the entire system of credit had become more risky, so these valuations of risk were low (this was also widespread and is probably at the most negligent instead of really criminal)."

Thanks for an unsparing assessment of the widespread culpability of the parasitic leeches that make up the finance "industry". The fatal mistake was elevating these bottom-feeders to the top of the economic food-chain where they could propagandize capitalism as if it could substitute for actual labor. As you say, they aren't really "criminal", just vermin who will consume whatever they're allowed to touch.

Bush is Lucy, setting up the political football.

The Congressional Democrats are Charley Brown, moronically convinced they have no choice but to once more try and kick the ball.

But this time, instead of Bush snatching the ball away, it’s McCain who intercepts the play, grabs the ball and runs with it to the opposite goal line.

The score: Bush and the Democrats look like a losing “team” while McCain boasts of saving the taxpayers’ $700 billion.

And Barney Frank is once again revealed to be a capitulating tool.

While the bill was far from perfect, it would have benefitted a majority of Americans -- who are vested in the stock market via mutual funds, 401K plans, pension plans, etc... The corrupt greedheads to whom Greenwald refers are merely point people for the rest of us, proxies if you will for much of the nation's wealthholders, a class consisting of many million ordinary citizens. This was... a defeat for all Americans who have investments, pensions, small businesses, corporate jobs and retirement incomes watching helplessly as a trillion dollars of their money disappeared in one day

This "Ich bin ein Capitalist" wail from the supposedly devastated 401K proletariat rings hollow to my ears. I've had two of these tax-deferred savings accounts issuing me reassuring quarterly reports for the past decade. Just to be sure, I checked my balances online today, after the impact of Monday's 700-point stock market debacle. Neither of my accounts had even registered a tremor.

How did my 401K's escape financial ruin while others' have apparently gone down in flames? I remembering slogging through the glossy "prospectus" of the various so-called "investment opportunities" my ex-employers' 401K marketing personnel enthusiastically promoted. I was searching doggedly at the time for something resembling an FDIC-insured long-term savings account with a tangible interest rate. In one case, I had to settle for something described as a "Prime Fund", but was reassured that it would be managed in a manner that would allegedly "preserve the value of the investor's principal".

My conclusion now, as then, was that if I wanted to risk my retirement savings on the stock market, I'd pick my own companies to gamble on. The last thing I'd trust was some shifting collection of "financial instruments" chosen by a corporate suit I'd never even met. Yes, I heard the swan song of "diversification" and "long-term investment performance", just like I'd heard all about "putting your home equity to work" from the refinance hucksters. If you're one of the hapless wage-earners who bought into these empty promises, you have my condolences, but I'm not willing to help cover your "losses".

I put "losses" in quotes because the money you thought your retirement account or home speculation was "earning" was never anything more than a manipulative fiction. The financial "leverage" that was supposedly trickling down into your personal retirement fund added nothing of genuine value to society; it was just a tangle of elaborate schemes for milking the cream off other peoples' labor, and we can all see where it leads.

But I'm probably just as stuck as you are in the long run, as my 401K's are denominated in US dollars. I'll just have to see how soon I can get out from under that "investment" as well.

If McCain had actually been a populist, rather than a faux maverick, he would have seized the moment when the House initially rejected the bailout, and positioned himself as leader of a spontaneous citizens' tax revolt. He could've easily portrayed the Democrats as teaming up with Bush to milk the taxpayers on behalf of the Wall Street fat cats. That would've been one hell of a surprise, dramatically changing the course of the election.

I suspect this was McCain's original instinct in "suspending" his campaign and threatening to skip the first Presidential debate. He flew to DC to confer face-to-face with the breakaway Republican Congressmen who blocked the bailout in order to gauge their long-term resolve.

But McCain was no doubt confronted by his corporate backers as well, who have a considerable vested interest in the bailout. Judging by his snarling demeanor at the debate, McCain probably found himself cock-blocked by the real powers that be, who could care less which Republicrat gets elected in the end.