So how does it feel, Democrats and Republicans in CONGRESS, to have taken those few hundred thousand dollars in your pockets in exchange for not putting into place proper oversight on Wall Street and, thus, helping lose TRILLIONS of dollars of the little people's money?

THAT is money at WORK.

Is there STILL a shortage of prisons in this country?

Why is every person who helped those lobbyists, the lobbyists THEMSELVES, and the congressmen STILL walking the streets free? Shouldn't our vaunted FBI be looking at this as a CRIME SCENE?!?

Or does the FBI only protect the rich?

The Banksters "need" more money after getting hundreds of billions in handouts from Uncle Sam. The addict needs another fix before it sobers up. Who would have thought?

on a related note, I know that some Republicans are worried that a Democratic White House in conjunction with a Democratic Congress could usher in a new era of "big spending."

Isn't that being a little bit disingenuous? Republicans are perfectly happy promoting "big spending" when it comes to "defense" (you know, spending trillions of dollars defending Iraq), they are merely worried that something other than militarism might cut in line when taking turns dipping their hands into the honey pot.

Basically, they are worried that their corporate welfare checks to the military industrial complex will get turned into normal welfare checks.

...damned armadillos.

I'm seem to recall a story when this whole mess started quoting a Treasury official asked where the $700 Billion number came from and he basically said:

"We just picked a really big number."

Who says anyone is going to jail?

http://www.infowars.com/?p=5537

As Greenspan stood before Congress, Bill Sali, Republican from Idaho questioned Christopher Cox, the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Sali asked Cox, "Is somebody going to go to jail?" (for these crimes). Cox "quickly backed off a hard line approach", according to the NYT and answered,

“There’s no question that somewhere in this terrible mess many laws were broken. You know, cleaning up the mess through law enforcement after the fact — while important, is not ideal.”

We have 2 rather obvious questions about that exchange:

1. Mr. Cox, "law enforcement" is your job. The Security and exchange commission, "holds primary responsibility for enforcing the federal securities laws and regulating the securities industry, the nation’s stock and options exchanges, and other electronic securities markets." The supposed purpose of this hearing is to investigate the crime and to "clean up the mess", as you call it, which was caused by deregulation! Your answer, Mr. Cox, clearly indicates that you are still not willing to enforce or regulate.

In his cynical response, admitting that "many laws were broken", Cox continues to abrogate his responsibility to "enforce and regulate" by stating that imprisonment of the criminals, "is not ideal". Can you hear a sitting Judge telling the prosecutor that prison "is not ideal" for a bank robber or murderer in a U.S. criminal court? It would certainly not be ideal for the thief or the killer!

2. The US government has always used law enforcement and punishment to fight and "clean up" other crimes ranging from smoking marijuana to armed robbery and murder. Have their crime-fighting tactics suddenly changed for those behind these high crimes? "Impunity" comes to mind.

Jail is for the serfs, not the Robber Barons.

Wasn't there supposed to be some type of oversight or limits on how this money was supposed to be spent?

First it was to buy bad securities, then to equity stakes in banks, then buy up mortgages and now apparently Paulson has the authority to give the money to insurance companies or the auto industry. Where did that come from?

It starting to look like Congress just handed Paulson $700 billion dollars to spend anyway he wanted with zero controls. Was there no place in 700 page novel of legislation that put limits on how Paulson can use the money?

So what happens when Paulso blows this wad and how much is he going to ask for in the sure to be lame duck session of congress that will happen in November? $500 billion, a trillion?

I said at the beginning that no good legislation can be written in week and its looking like I was right.

Richard Perle was interviewed on CBC Radio this morning. The conversation turned to the economy and he said that he was worried that if Obama was elected he would bring in too many new regulations. The perfect Republican mindset. Their policies have brought about the worst financial crises in 75 years but anything the Democrats might do would be bad for the economy.

Republicans don't live in a bubble; it is more like a mirror-lined room where all they see is their (supposed) reflected glory.

Actually it's starting to look like we should just inflate the hell out of our currenty and pay off every single debt. Clean slate. You can only do it once though.

I'm in law school presently (worst time imaginable) and went to hear a managing general counsel from American Express speak about a career in that industry. They had free pizza so I said why not. Well he gives us a day in the life. So the day before he spent his day (1)figuring out how to take advantage of the bailout, though as he said American Express is a stable company and the bailout was not meant for it, and (2) trying to weaken a new consumer protection law that the fed proposed, which according to him is the biggest of its type he's ever seen. The punchline? The most important attributes for a lawyer in his line of work - ethics and honesty.

I hate hearing this. When the government takes an equity stake in any company, it purchases new shares. Those shares have value. The value goes up or down based on the market value of the company. Yes, the market is sucking today.. that won't be true forever. So, the money hasn't gone anywhere. Granted, it's been -allocated-, but that isn't the same thing.

I say, who cares if it takes 3 trillion dollars to finish recapitalizing the banks? The only losers in that scenario are the (pre-dilution) shareholders of said banks, as is right and proper. They are the owners of the companies that screwed the pooch.. they are supposed to lose money when the companies they own do stupid things.

On the other hand, as new stakeholders in these firms, the USG stands to make a really nice profit, because it's buying into an oversold market.

I was really unhappy with the prospect of offering banks super low interest long term loans-- that really was giving away taxpayers' money. This situation is quite different and much better for the long-term prospects of the government. We're going to need the dividends from those shares in the rough years ahead.