Bailout 2.0

Another day, another attempt to make Wall Street take $750 billion inside a large Hallmark card with a kitten on the front. It's says 'Pobody's Nerfect in the Financial Industry'. Did I mention the kitty is dressed like a banker?

The Senate is up this time, with Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell having carefully crafted a plan that is pretty much the same as the failed one, except it raises the FDIC limit to $250,000 and has all sorts of tax breaks. Because they're counting on the fact that House Republicans would chop off their own dicks if they got tax cuts for doing it. Obama, Biden, and McCain are all coming back to vote on it and Sarah Palin will be eating fried cheese curds in Green Bay, hoping no bystander yells out one of those journalistic gotcha questions. Pelosi tried to sound like the Senate didn't shit in her corn flakes. "The Senate has made a decision about how to proceed and what can pass that body. The Senate will vote tomorrow night, and the Congress will work its will."

Meanwhile in the House, the GOP is working on a plan that requires the Government to 100% guarantee bank losses from mortgage backed securities, suspend the capital gains tax for 2 years, and essentially loosen accounting regulations. Shame they couldn't work a death tax repeal in there or a declaration of war with Iran.

But there you are, two of the latest plans to give away your money. If it makes you feel any better, liberal economist Paul Krugman of the NYT thinks that the Dodd-Frank plan that got voted down was better than doing nothing, that basing anything off that framework is ok, and that the true cost of the plan, with it's taking of ownership shares, would be near zero. So when it passes at least tell yourself that one smart economist kinda, sorta, likes it and at least thinks it's better than nothing and definitely thinks it's better than Paulson's original plan. So shout "Paul Krugman thinks the bailout's not a total clusterfuck!" instead of leaping off a tall building or stuffing all your money into your mattress, or whatever you were going to do after you stopped weeping and got out of the fetal position.