There are subjects I know a lot about and others I know very little about. And the high-wire financial mess we're currently in falls clearly into the latter category. But I know enough to be troubled that we appear ready to give upwards of a trillion dollars in unfettered and unreviewable spending authority to the ... let's face it, the Bush administration , the folks who did such a bang up job in Iraq and New Orleans. This morning a friend told me it's like the Iraq War all over again -- Shock & Awe, followed by an occupation of Wall Street, and all with no exit plan. In all seriousness, Paulson seems like a very able guy. And without a roadmap in hand, he appears at least to have avoided catastrophe so far. But let's take a moment to realize just how much money we're talking about. It is probably inevitable in such cases that the public gets stuck with a lot of the bill for the recklessness and perhaps even criminality of the people who got us into this mess. Even if it is their 'fault', we (as a country and its citizens) are simply too bound up with the consequences of their actions to let them play out in an unfettered manner. But we need both some orderly system of decision making and some conditions imposed on the people, and the industries, that brought us into the ditch. Here's a note received today from one TPM Reader ... The current proposal for the bailout -- $700 billion to be used however the administration chooses t ...
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