I would be considered by most a Joe six-pack (my "street cred" consisting of over a decade working in a slaughter/packing house). A lame duck president with a 30% approval rating and a history of (lying/bad intelligence) has no bully pulpit. Fear, greed, the need to act quickly has the stink of a poorly written Mamet knock off .. it is not the foundation of sound immutable policy.
As for the (agreement/bailout) I'd speak to the issues but public scrutiny is not allowed ... Only those with seer stones and access to the hat can say what's there.
(Funny/ironic/of interest) Joe Biden stump speech for the last few weeks has included...
"And a culture in Washington where the very few wealthy and powerful have a seat at the table and everybody else is on the menu."
http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/amandascott/gG5qpz
I'm willing for things to go poorly until the election in just over a month. Real assets always revalue. Smaller fish eat the large bloating carcass. If nothing else I hope this is the death blow to privatising social security.
I've mixed feelings about the market and the bail out. I was fairly surprised by the Republican reticence to allow a bail out, but such a reluctance does fit Republican ideology. But it was interesting to hear about their constituents being against a bailout. I'm just wondering which constituents, the people below the middle class who don't have much money and taxes could put them down even more (and taxes will have to go up to support the bail out) or the rich who will stay rich and don't want to give up anymore money to taxes to support social programs that enable people to act badly. Could be both, I guess.
Me, I don't like the idea of rescuing companies that behave badly. I feel bad for the people with money in their 401ks and such, but at the same time, I also don't want to "award" the lack of vigilance or bad decision making. . .except for the fact that public school doesn't provide education on addressing financial stuff. How can people be expected to make wise decisions if they're not given the guidance in the first place? Why not have the bail out go to the "innocents" and going to educating people on how to deal with their finances rather than the big companies? Let the big corporations deal with their mistakes because they're the ones who're supposed to know what they're doing and obviously, they didn't.