Rob - in spite of your thoughts about Ben's tirade here - I do not think anyone truly has enough information on the bailout - his documentary is top notch and worth the price. (My personal opinion on the bailout is DON"T DO IT! But keep that under your hat :) )

O Lord, Thou givest us everything, at the price of an effort. - Leonardo Da Vinci

cutting off government junkies - the detox can get pretty damn ugly 

so when do we get to it? it's not going to fix itself I'm afraid - and if we wait too long it may require the second amendment option

Dominate education now 

I concur, Cool. Expelled was a very enlightening view of the discipline that means a great deal to me - science. How it has been taken over by ideologues is beyond me. Global warming and Darwinism - two wrongs don't make a right. Cavuto is a sharp cookie on finance. He was required watching for me for several years until I got rid of the TV.

O Lord, Thou givest us everything, at the price of an effort. - Leonardo Da Vinci

You pretty much said what I was thinking. I have always liked Stein, but I thought he was a bit more financially knowledgeable than he appears here. The fable that the New Deal got us out of the Depression was debunked long ago, I thought. I've heard that WWII was what really, finally got our economy going again, as sad as that sounds.

The simple and obvious fact that the market has tanked (and is still tanking) even with all these "bail-0uts" should prove that they are doing no good, and probably more harm. I've lost about 50% on my 401k so far, but I don't want to move it into money market. That would just be giving up that loss. I want a rebound, and a chance to make some of that back. My funds have rules about moving money in and out, so I can't really "play" the market. Now, on top of my personal losses, I'm going to get stuck with a who-knows-HOW-big future debt, payable through taxes.

We need to stop trying to prop up the losers in this debacle, get the hell out of the way, and let the true market re-assert itself. Only then can we get back to something approaching sanity.

I was originally for the "bail-0uts," but the actual result has changed my mind. It's been like throwing gasoline on a fire, and the answer isn't more gas!

"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss..." - The Who

The Myth of "laissez-faire" caused the Great Depression is completely debunked by the facts. Credit Expansion caused by government and the Fed in the 1920s caused the bubble that burst in 1929 and it was further government intervention by Hoover and FDR that led to a recession, turning into the Great Depression:

America's Great Depression (PDF) (368 pgs) (Murray N. Rothbard, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus of Economics, 2000)

The Myth of FDR and the New Deal

FDR's policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate (UCLA)
How FDR Made the Depression Worse (Robert Higgs, Ph.D. Economics)
How FDR's New Deal Harmed Millions of Poor People (Jim Powell, B.A. History)
The Mythology of Roosevelt and the New Deal (Robert Higgs, Ph.D. Economics)
The New Deal Debunked (Thomas J. DiLorenzo, Ph.D. Professor of Economics)
The New Deal Debunked (again) (Thomas J. DiLorenzo, Ph.D. Professor of Economics)
The Truth about FDR (Thomas E. Woods, Jr. Ph.D. History)
Tough Questions for Defenders of the New Deal (Jim Powell, B.A. History)

Books:
FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression (Jim Powell, 2003)
Salvos Against the New Deal (Garet Garrett, 2002)
The Roosevelt Myth (John T. Flynn, 1948)

Papers:
Why the Great Depression Lasted So Long and Why Prosperity Resumed after the War (Robert Higgs, Ph.D. Economics) 

Censored Global Warming Videos

And that CR is where the problem lies, you and Ben are so scared of NOT doing anything for fear if something had been done it would have avoided the whole mess, and this is where you are easily fooled into doing the WRONG thing.  Where you and Ben are being mislead is the fact that EVERY dollar of government bailout money has to come from the private sector in the form of taxes or purchase of bonds.  Then all that money that should have been used on those making the correct decisions are now deprived of the working capital to continue making the correct decisions.  The perversity is ALL government activity to this point has been self defeating because they are draining liquidity from the system to throw at those who have and are making bad decisions.  This is why we should not bailout the auto companies, they made bad decisions and any money given to them will be equally mispent especially now the "green conditions" would be the strings attached.  Any bailout that does not force the auto companies to put their financial house in order will only delay the inevitable.  You remember AMC?  Are they still with us?  How about British Leland?  Same deal.  Both governments in an attempt to save jobs only lost their money and still the jobs were lost, because the bad decisions were not corrected.

Let's be clear about the auto companies. There are three parties to blame:  Feckless Management, Greedy Unions and Incompetent Government.  Management was feckless because they allowed themselves to be caught in the no win situation of giving into the union's absurd demands that were way out of line with the industry standard, so they put their hope in the high profit models like the SUVs and pickup trucks and other high dollar vehicles.  Due to the CAFE' standards by the government to keep the fleet mileage up, they were forced to make subcompacts but because of their demograhics appealed mostly to low end users, those who couldn't afford the gas guzzlers as a result there was little if any profit in it. Then the government screws up the whole ball of wax by the domestic drilling ban and ethanol, thus driving UP the price of gasoline.  Surprise, surprise, the price of gas goes to $4/gallon and the bottom drops out of the gas guzzler market and thus evaporates all profits.  The combination of fecklessness, greed and incompetence is what ailes the auto companies and no amount of bailout can overcome the combination of all three.  The auto companies must declare chapter 11, re-write all the contracts to industry standard (Toyota and Nissan), lay off excess workers, and the government needs to stop meddling with the energy supply by ending all impediments to domestic energy production to ensure a stable oil price of less than $60/barrel oil and < $2/gal gas. 

I will also emphasize a point here about foreign outsouring of oil, some $200 billion was siphoned from the private economy just this year because of the drilling ban.  That's $200 billion private industry was denighed in capital financing, that's jobs that will never be created.  Now imagine over a trillion dollars of government siphoning money away from the good decision makers for bail outs...in a vain attempt to prop up failure but not creating anymore jobs.

Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, starving the poor one gallon of ethanol at a time. Fill your tank with E85 and cull a village.

Hey CR - while the problems of not bailing out this industry or that are obvious, the problem is that no one is considering the true solution. Bandaids are nice if you have a nick or scratch, but this is more like gettin gcaught in the gears of a combine, and the government is the one that got us into this plight. Regulations, like everything else, are good in moderation. We have been going beyond moderation for years now. While I do not claim to understand everything that is happening or the underlying reasons for the situation, I do believe that Capitalism is the best financial system available. It works if it is left alone. People need things, and if someone can afford to produce something that people need at a price they can afford, then the system works. The Big 3 do not work because their "business plan" does not work. Toyota, Nissan, Hundai and the likes have created a plan that works. Government regulations and union pressure has made it so the Big 3 cannot compete as easily. The people will go elsewhere. 

O Lord, Thou givest us everything, at the price of an effort. - Leonardo Da Vinci

And where pray tell will this money come from?  Al Gore?  Nancy Pelosi?  Harry Reid?  Barack Obama?  Should the printing presses be run overtime?  The national debt has hit $10 trillion, what's another trillion, right?

It's cheaper than bailing the Big 3 out and will stimulate the auto industry and overall economy. Even though their products suck, I would be happy to buy one of their cars if I was given the money.

And that's where many people are completely wrong, treading water through consumer spending does not stimulate the economy as it only redistributes wealth, wealth creation stimulates the economy.  Unleash the oil companies to drill domestically, the electric companies to build nuclear power plants, etc. Savings & Investment is what drives the economy and creates wealth, not spending.  Just because consumer spending is approx 70% of the GDP doesn't mean the bigger number is always the most important.  Without a sturdy base, the column falls over.  Think of the economy as an inverted pyramid, where savings & investment support the upper part called consumer spending.  The government in it's infinite stupidity kicked out the bottom of the pyramid by siphoning capital out of the country via the domestic drilling ban and other outsourcing measures and then made the auto companies investment in profitable SUVs useless by jacking up the price of energy.

Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, starving the poor one gallon of ethanol at a time. Fill your tank with E85 and cull a village.