First let me say I'm not the least happy about anything even vaguely connected to this bailout...that it's going to happen, or that things got to such a state that it needs to happen, not happy at all. But...

We do have a test case for the consequences of doing nothing. It was in 1929-30, & the consequence was called the Great Depression.

jenna, I respect what you're saying, & if just a little recession was the worst of it, I would agree that we should just take the hit & get it over with...but that's not what we're facing now, & frankly, I think Main Street has already seen the recession for most of the past year. Tweedle-dee & Tweedle-dum (aka Fed Chairman & Treasury Sec.) have been saying for months we can get thru this ok, because that's their jobs, to try to calm the markets; now that they can't placate everybody with soothing sounds, they've got a credibility problem, & I don't blame Congress for dragging their asses thru the coals...

Tightening the regulations back to where they were before is the best we can do now, but it's still closing the barn door after the cows have gotten out...

__________________
Plug me into somethin'

If the theory does not conform to the facts, then the facts must be discarded.

No good deed ever goes unpunished

Never argue with an idiot. He'll drag you down to his level, & beat you with experience.