Didn’t mean to post two XKCDs today, but this hit the nail on the head perfectly.  The bonuses are vexing as hell, but not even a drop in the bucket of this free money we are giving people WITH NO STRINGS ATTACHED.  We blindly hope that they won’t fuck us over just to make a WHOLE TON OF MONEY, again.  Fools we are.

Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning called the bailout “Unamerican”.
Now, if you don’t believe the bailout will work, that’s one thing…but I can promise you that only the rich care if it’s “American” or not (whatever that means). People losing their homes or 401Ks don’t have that luxury.
Btw, Bunning is a Republican, of course. The same people who love to send other folks to die in a war based on ego.

I’m watching CNN do an interview with Jim DeMint, the Republican Senator from South Carolina.

They asked him about what the government should do instead of the bailout.  His answer was bizarre.  Basically, his stance is that government continues to be too involved in the free market.  We should cut corporate taxes and capital gains taxes (or just get rid of them), etc.

If we do that, then the market will take care of itself.  We simply didn’t deregulate enough.  We must do more!  Think about that.  What next?  Make corporations completely immune to lawsuits?

(btw, ask them if they think government is interfering by allowing the existence of the corporation as a legal entity)

This is almost a religious issue with these guys (as Senator Clinton pointed out a few minutes earlier).

God didn’t help me even though I prayed.  Well, then you didn’t pray hard enough.

Or, as some psychics will say, I can’t use my powers because of all the doubters in the room.

There is ALWAYS an excuse when your truth falls apart.

Look, the only thing I really know about econimics is that if money moving around is good, then the surest way to make that happen is to give money to poor people.  I am no expert in any way.  What I do see, though, is an awful lot of empirical evidence to say that deregulation has been allowed to go way too far and no evidence to show that letting it go further will, in some magical way, cause greed and the desire to fulfill immediate short-term goals to come under control.

Think Progress » McCain: I’m glad I deregulated Wall Street.
Yes, thanks John.  We really needed that deregulation after those horrible, lean years under Clinton from 1992 to 1998.
Jeez, man, are you going to be just like GW and be unable to admit to a mistake???

For those of you keeping track…

We could have sent $200000 to 3.5 million homeowners, allowing them to keep their homes and avoiding this whole thing.

But since any given person losing their home doesn’t matter to the powers-that-be, that didn’t happen.

Politicians deserve the shitty reputations they get.