Great News! (Seriously)

The goal of the bank rescue is to protect the savings of average Americans. It wasn’t to force banks to make new loans. The latter approach would, in effect, just re-inflate another credit bubble using federal dollars.

Well, the marketing boilerplate was that it would be to "make new loans to help main street". Of course, only people who took that line of bull seriously are now surprised.

There is a real problem here regarding the functioning of our Democracy -- that Americans really were snookered over the bailout bill. That is, the only rational purpose for a bill structured like that (rather than direct aids/grants to homeowners and businesses) was to attempt to recapitalize the banks.

Now that this is being confirmed, most people are realizing they got "gypped."

We told you so.

Oh, and the bank recapitalization won't work either, because it will take trillions, not just mere hundreds of billions. Attempting to save the big, failed (and failing) banks is a fool's errand.

With hundreds of billions, the existing (failed) bank structure could have been swept away and a network of new community banks productively established, but that would be way too democratic for this government.