Bryanb

Read It and Weep for the USA

I want to repeat what was said above. "The plan should be to take over and dispose failed financial INSTITUTIONS, not to buy JUNK MORTGAGES from these institutions so they can go their merry way. This is a crucial difference between the RTC rescue and this proposal. This plan will save the jobs of the people who caused the mess, and leave the taxpayer stuck with bad mortgages." Spot on!

"There is good money out there to buy distressed companies at a bargain" Absolutely right! Many US companies (including Wells Fargo - wow a bank that actually did the correct conservative thing - that banks are supposed to do - and does not have it's hand out looking for taxpayer gold) are flush with cash and have been waiting for an opportunity like this to buy "distressed assets." Is Paulson and his Republican extreme-socialism punishing them?

Split Stock please grow up. The US governemnt would not bail out the world unless it was in self-interest. Please don't be conceited.

Brahm. "authority being vested in the Secretary of the Treasury is so vast, without limit within the $700 billion authorised" Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Even if we were to pray that it wouldn't. He is human after all.

Buffett Warned Us in 2003

Apppro he has helped us by warning us of the dangers, but "you can take a horse to water........."
Nicky Sox was created to make it more difficult for company management to steal from shareholders. It seems to have worked, because that is not the problem now. The problem now is that those socialist wimps on Wall Street (previously Capitalist Kings) got too greedy, just like company management did pre-2001. I agree, SOX is onerous, but if derivatives, shorting, etc. had had that kind of oversight and disclosure, then maybe we would have been spared some of this excessive turmoil now.