here are a few things that i heard.  i cant guarantee they are true, but they came from pretty reliable sources.

the total of the sub-prime mortages in the u.s. was $1.2 trillion dollars.  of those, only 25% went bad, for a total of $300 billion.  why wasnt, or isnt, something being done to shore those up?  the problem is that amount is leveraged many times over, but if they would have never gone bad, we wouldnt be in such a bad situation.  over a year ago, there were many economists screaming warning signs, yet this administration, the federal reserve and wall street did nothing and said everything was going to be fine.  why wasnt something done to help the homeowners a year ago?  i'm not in favor of any sort of handout, but even $100 billion in short-term low or no interest loans would have kept this situation from getting anywhere near what it is now.  much better than the TRILLIONS they are claiming it will take now!

this bailout bill was supposed to deal with executive compensation to deal with these golden parachutes.  what they actually came up with is an insult to the american people and a joke.  basically, what i heard, was that all they were going to do was tax them at 20%.  so a ceo could still get a $100 million golden parachute, but the govt. was going to take 20%, so they would only get $80 million. 

so basically, the democrats are playing politics with this all?  if this is so important and so needed-- they have the votes to pass it!  AM I SUPPOSED TO BELIEVE THAT IN THE MOST HYPER-PARTISAN (on both sides), DO-NOTHING CONGRESS IN THE HISTORY OF THE COUNTRY, THE DEMOCRATS JUST SUDDENLY DECIDED TO BECOME SO MAGNANIMOUS AND SUDDENLY WANT THEIR REPUBLICAN COUNTERPARTS TO SHARE IN THE GLORY OF THE BILL THAT WILL SAVE US ALL?!?!?  they want it to be bi-partisan because when it fails and makes everything worse-- they dont take all the blame!!  they arent looking to share the credit, they are wanting to share the blame.  there is no guarantee this thing will even work.  many of those democrats, and republicans, voted against this for the best reason of all-- principle!  once you cave in on that you can never go back.  i was heartened to see 95 dems vote against this thing.  for the democrat leadership to blame this on the republicans when 95 (not 20 or 30--95!!) of their own party voted against this is an insult to anyone with a functioning brain!  it goes to prove my point that they arent looking for someone to share credit with-- they are looking for someone to share blame with.  if 12 dems switched their vote, it would have passed and still had 66 republicans.  by all accounts that is pretty bi-partisan! 

another sticking point is bailing out foreign banks and investors.  we shouldnt be bailing out anyone-- but foreign banks??  they assumed the risk when they put their money into these mortgage backed securities.  there is risk involved.  if we cave in on this principle of bailing people out when they take risks, where does it end?  what is their incentive to stop being stupid?  what happens if i go to the horse track and put all my money on a horse that doesnt win?  should i get my money back??  what happens if i buy lottery tickets and dont win?  should i get my money back?? 

what happens to the value of the dollars you already have in your pocket when they print up another trillion (or 2, or 3, or 5, or 10)?  if you have $1 million invested in stocks, what is the difference between losing half through the market going down or losing half because the dollar lost half its value?  you still lost half!  most economists i have heard speak say there will be great inflation if this deal passes.  anything you save by "stabilizing the markets" will be lost through inflation.  and we still have no one saying this thing will even work!!  THE VERY SAME PEOPLE THAT GOT US INTO THIS MESS ARE THE SAME ONES SAYING WE HAVE TO DO THIS!!!  THESE ARE THE SAME PEOPLE THAT SAID EVERYTHING WAS OK 6 MONTHS AGO!!  WHILE THE PEOPLE THAT WARNED US OF THIS TROUBLE ARE STILL BEING IGNORED!!!  WAKE UP!!  DONT GIVE THESE PEOPLE MORE MONEY AND MORE POWER!!  HENRY PAULSON AND BEN BERNANKE TRIED TO MAKE THEMSELVES UNTOUCHABLE AND ABOVE CONGRESS FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!! 

if these guys want this sooooo bad, and really think this is soooo needed, they should make this pledge to the american people:  "if you give us this money and authority and this doesnt fix the problem, i will retire completely (not just go back into the private sector and make more millions) and never be heard from again!"  this goes for everyone that has anything to do with this mess:  bernanke, paulson, bush, obama, mccain, pelosi, frank, boehner-- everybody!  what i expect will happen is they will just keep coming back over and over because if we pass this we are past the point of return.  once we have violated our free market principles its over.  we will be "pot committed" to use a poker term.  bernanke even admitted the fed caused the great depression.  they are doing it again.  no matter what happens, we are going to have a very deep and long recession.  it is going to be very, very difficult.  this bailout may help in the short term, but the long term will be much, much worse.  i am sorry, but i need more than just bush, paulson, bernanke and ali velshi @cnn to convince me otherwise.  their credibility is gone as far as i'm concerned.  the people who were warning about this a year ago are the ones we should be listening to right now, because they were right!  sadly, they are still being ignored.