I know nothing about the mysteriously ambiguous world of economics so I can't speculate as to whether this bailout thing is good, bad, or indifferent.  Well, actually I can -- I can speculate that bailing out big companies sounds bad.  Not so much for the dreaded socialism aspect but more for the fact that the upper echelons of all these failed companies won't experience any consequences from their persistent record of gross incompetence.  (Not that they would experience any consequences without a bailout either, since I'm sure they'd just move on to another cozy CEO job.)

One other thing:  I keep hearing over and over that the reason we need to do this bailout right away is that small businesses rely heavily on the credit markets, so they'll all die out if they can't have ready access to credit on a daily basis.  I can't help but wonder why so many businesses are so dependent on credit... why don't small businesses have, you know, actual money?  It seems like a no brainer to me that if you are constantly paying expenses by borrowing money, you are eventually going to collapse, and any kind of bailout will just prolong the inevitable.

This might be one of the only times in my life that I actually support Eric Cantor in his push for an alternate bailout.