Please, God, Don't Let Them Be Right

I'm not going to pretend like I understand the current economic crisis in detail. I "understand" it as far as "banks were allowed to over-leverage, which they did to buy mortgages that were based on trumped up financial data to provide loans to people who couldn't afford them. When those loans went bad, all the over-leveraging is cascading to take down the entire financial sector." [For Godssake correct me if I am wrong].

I think I understand that this is exactly what free-market capitalism looks like and regulation of capitalism is designed to smooth out these "bumps." What is not supposed to happen in a free market situation is that government is not supposed to step in to smooth out only the bottom bumps, as that doesn't really work.

What I don't know is if this bailout will be better or worse for my beloved "working folk." Most "lefties" seem to be of the opinion that shit is going to roll down hill no matter what, so limiting the amount might be a good idea.

I find myself agreeing with Brad at Sadly No! among others. I'm not quite willing to go so far as to pledge to not vote for Dems if they fuck this up, but if the Bush administration is able to demand extraordinary powers and an extraordinary amount of money and we manage to get nothing out of the deal, then, really, what the fuck will be the point. If Reaganomics and conservativism in general can do this badly and we'll give them $700 billion with no strings attached, if they can actually say we have to give them $700 billion with no strings in order to get Wall Street to take the deal and we give in, then fuck it.

There might be a total of one million people in this country who would think that this is a good idea and they all vote Republican. What can possibly be the benefit of giving in here? If they give in, we might have to admit that our party is just as bought and sold as the other guys.