Corporate Welfare

700 billion dollars for banks that ceased to function. Here is a link you can use to tell you why the government intervention isn't the problem but how it is being done.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081006/greider

An excerpt:

Let me be clear. The scandal is not that government is acting. The scandal is that government is not acting forcefully enough--using its ultimate emergency powers to take full control of the financial system and impose order on banks, firms and markets. Stop the music, so to speak, instead of allowing individual financiers and traders to take opportunistic moves to save themselves at the expense of the system. The step-by-step rescues that the Federal Reserve and Treasury have executed to date have failed utterly to reverse the flight of investors and banks worldwide from lending or buying in doubtful times. There is no obvious reason to assume this bailout proposal will change their minds, though it will certainly feel good to the financial houses that get to dump their bad paper on the government. (emphasis added)

Exactly what the US institutions need. Bailouts are one thing. Bailouts with just money thrown behind are stupidly criminal. Read the whole damn thing. It won't make you feel better and there is an off-chance you might vomit.

I nearly did.