been told to open their books? Banks? Investment houses? Auto manufacturers? ... now insurers?
No ... all this freakin money is going into a black freakin hole.

The question that needs to be asked is :
Who are the counter parties to all of this?

One wonders what accepting TARP funds will do to their A.M. Best Ratings? A sound precondition for allocating TARP funds would be full transparency as to the quality of their holdings.

Back in 2001, I was helping senior citizens that were having their homes taken away by predatory lenders. The only valuable asset for many people gone because of fraud. No one listened to the problem or cared. The Mortgage Bankers Association owned state legislators and governors.

I have seen whole neighborhoods devastated by predatory lenders. It is sad the level of pain that predatory lenders and their benefactors - financial conglomerates - have caused people. People are trying enjoy life the best they can or who have been hoodwinked into believing in the "American Dream". It is just sad.

After all, layoffs are a severely lagging indicator, especially governmental layoffs. We haven't seen the end of the first round of wage deflation yet, so we won't know if we're in a wage/price spiral (the pessimistic outlook) until at least Q409, maybe even Q110.

The key phrase in the above is "once demand increases". We won't see increasing demand until we see increasing jobs, and we won't see increasing jobs unless the federal spending is enough to counteract the effect of State Government Trapdoor Day.

We are still *very much* in danger of falling into a wage/price deflationary spiral.
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Executive compensation is inversely proportional to morality and ethics.

You might put this question in a comment, since you're looking for references. I don't have any stats on this but you might try looking at polls.

That would make for an interesting post, just how many times has Congress gone completely polar opposite of what the people want.

On TARP, bail outs it has to be high. There is bi-partisan opposition as in rage.

then they are too big period.
If there is a company big enough to drag down the economy on its own then it is a monopoly and needs to be broken up.

Why does it all keep coming back to the repeal of Glass/Steagel?

From Britain to America to Asia, people are rising up and protesting debt as being normal and accepted. Why is this happening?

“Just as the rich rule over the poor, so the borrower becomes the lender’s servant.” Pvbs 22:7

It is quite interesting after reading that verse from the Bible that God cautions us away from debt just as the protesters are doing. Taking the verse into context of the whole chapter of Proverbs, one could say that only a fool would be in debt. However, in today’s current economic systems and philosophies, debt is the main instrument of economic success of the entire world.
What happens to an economic system that is based on what God considers foolish?

I think he found a new publisher, but unsure if it's out yet.

If you're referring to Bailout Nation, I thought that McGraw-Hill had axed it - far too critical of those agencies for their taste.

With regard to S&P's prediction, given their corrupt and dishonest behavior concerning colluding with the O.C.C. to interdict the states' AGs from going after the predatory lenders, and the more than occasional example of triple-A rated paper, which S&P was planning to continue, but then several days to one week prior it was suddenly downrated to junk paper, I would suggest S&P is probably off by at least 10 years --- look for 2023, if we're lucky.