Possible bailout proposal

It looks like we're gonna have a bailout whether we want it or not.

I'm opposed, but in the interest of offering my two cents, here's what I think should happen.

The biggest issue with the bailout comes down to valuation of the assets. The market hasn't been able to place a dollar figure on what they are worth and that keeps the market frozen. (Illiquid)

Instead of giving a blank check to Treasury (which means to the Executive Branch) , we should dole it out in increments of 100 billion. After the first 100 billion amount is used, then Congress should evaluate if and in what amount the next 100 billion should be doled out.

The benefit with this approach is two fold:

1) By allowing Treasury to begin purchasing assets, the market will quickly establish a value for the assets. This will help crystallize the market value for future purchases. It will also encourage private entities to begin purchasing the assets since the government would have set a floor value through its purchases.

2) By restricting the amount given out, we can keep control over the money and possibly conserve most of it.

I think this approach would work and would keep us off the hook for the entire 700 billion.

All we need do is help establish a value on the assets to get the market moving again. This is priming the pump rather than drowning it. Doing this would not require the whole enchilada requested by Paulson.

Bailout in haste--repent at your grandhildren's leisure.

I've been a little troubled by the proposed bailout.

Here's a story that tells a little about it.

My problem is one of competing concerns.

On the one hand, I think the government should help stabilize the market because the volatility we have currently is nothing but trouble for jobs, business, and growth.

On the other hand, I worry that the changes in the law over the past few decades have created a situation where well-financed, and well-connected interests with access to information unavailable to the rest of us, have created a mess where a few profit while the rest of us to pay the tab.

As it stands now, my generation and succeeding ones will pay for the preceding generations inability to delay gratification. The "Me" generation is so stunningly self-centered. Why should my generation (Gen X) be forced into parenting the Boomer's excesses?

We have financed increases in wealth for a small number through policies that a few trickle-down ideologues have convinced people are in the country's best interests.

This is absurd. Trickle-down is only a euphemism for Marie Antoinette's line of "Let them eat cake."

This bailout represents emergency CPR for a few companies and industries that have profited from the rest of us. Now, when they get caught without a chair in the economic game of musical chairs, they scream for help, despite the free market ideology they've trumpeted for years.

The failure of the administration to properly plan is not cause to hand over a blank check to cover their incompetent asses for their ideological idiocy. The public apparently feels the same way.

We should all have serious concerns about an administration that waits too late to fix a problem, then tries to use the immediacy of the need created by their dilatory response to demand change without oversight. This smells of Hitler demanding emergency powers from the German Parliament to fix a fabricated crisis and then seizing power.

Congress is doing the right thing by slowing down the train.