Giant Corporate Welfare Cheques
So, where are all these right-wing free-market advocates now that the "banking system" in the US -- privatized over the years and now so "free market" it hurts? Eh? Giving them $800 billion dollars because they fucked themselves hard?
Gimmie a break.
If the government had suggested giving bankrupt Americans $800 dollars each to get them back on their feet, there'd be a giant shitstorm about how that's not a good idea. But, give $2000 per American to the biggest, richest banks we've ever created on Earth and there's nary a flicker.
If there were calls four or five or 10 years ago to regulate the banks such that they couldn't have made retarded ("no income, no asset") loans in the first place, there wouldn't be such a huge problem now -- except that any such regulations would have been inevitably met with fierce opposition: you know, the government "mucking about in markets" and suchlike, as if nearly a trillion dollar injection of taxpayers' money isn't mucking about.
Seriously.