We are so screwed.

Eh, what can we do? I mean, honestly. Printing money isn't really a solution anyway.

I guess it was kind of refreshing to see that our represntitives didn't just make a decision without thinking about it. Maybe it screwed us, but still.

Aren't businesses supposed to be able to fail anyway?

We need to suck it up and let this happen, the bailout is flawed idea. I can't believe how much support it's getting.

I know, people will lose their jobs. That's rough. Maybe we could take some of that bailout money and figure out how to help those folks out.

We're trying to prop up artificially high prices here. It's time for things to get back to where they should be, including oil and your grocery bill. Propping up the institutions is only going to increase the disparity between cost and value.

There's no decision that's going to have people dancing in the streets. We're in the situation we're in and now we have to find a way out of it.

Just letting it happen is not an option. There is no safety net to keep this from spreading to the rest of the economy, and massive bank failures will spread. What is happening right now is that several very large dominos are teetering and if they fall many others will fall behind them. Just letting it happen is what Hoover did. Sadly, the regulatory structures that kept the financial sector from overplaying has been dismantled (mostly be Republicans, but with some help from Democrats). Our economy is built around a complex system of highly leveraged interdependencies that cannot stand tightening credit. I agree that the bailout bill was all fucked up. It was a bad bill. Nonetheless, some measures must be taken and taken now.

I disagree. The very nature of the market and the economy makes it self correcting.

We should learn from our mistakes, not support them.

Rebuilding should happen from the bottom up. This is top down correcting. It won't fix the problem, it will prolong the inevitable. AND, it will put the government in control where it has no business.

We have a general disagreement about where the government does and doesn't have business. Our mistake was taking a hands off approach to the markets and removing the regulations that made them work. The lesson to be leraned is that laissez faire fails everywhere it is tried. The Government must regulate these industries and must do so now.

I agree that rebuilding should happen from the bottom up, but stopping the collapse must be done at all levels.

I believe the government should regulate, no disagreement there.

I don't feel they (we) should have a vested interest in these securities.

It's a tough call there. Personally, I don't like it one bit. But...

My hope is that we will see a better bill offered today.