Of course, that's not exactly how it was sold to the American public.  It was a bailout to banking institutions and Wall Street to keep the economy from collapsing.  The stock market sank because the House did not pass the bill on the first try.

Or so we were told.

So what happened?  The Senate Republicans loaded the bill with pork and expanded it from 101 pages to more than 400 pages.  You and I weren't reason enough to bail out the economy.  Prospects for passage looked good, so the market began to recover.  And then nosedive. The bailout bill passed and relief was on the way.

Well, where is it?

Now that it's been passed by Congress and signed into law by you-know-who, the market is still in a nosedive and we're now being told that it won't be immediate and it'll probably cost hundreds of billions more.  Ahh...  Another excuse for more pork and more payoffs to the very people who cooked the books and crashed the economy.  Oh, and handed out millions in Congressional campaign donations.

Perfect example: Did you know that AIG executives spent half a million of your money on an executive retreat?  SPAs and all.  The works.  $85 billion in specific taxpayer bailout money for AIG and their execs continue with the same old patterns of abuse that didn't work in the first place.  Only this time with our money. The AIG execs need to be made to pay that money back. Next time if they need "time out," take it through weekend meetings in the board room catered by the deli across the street.

No more money to failing institutions.  Let them sink or swim like everybody else.  Darwin was right.  Survival of the fittest.

Keep going like we're going and the next crisis will be the collapse of the Mutual fund system as they continue to cash out for panicked investors. 

No!  It's time for action. 

First things first: Close the stock market for one week.  No trades = no losses.  Let the world markets sink or swim on their own.  Congress needs to formulate a better bailout package, including drastic changes to the one they just passed.

Another bailout package?  Perhaps.  But the Republicans need to be reminded of their "Reaganomic roots."  Put the money in the taxpayers' hands and they'll pump it back into the economy.  Rather than "trickle down" call it "trickle up."  Better yet, "Pump it up."  $700 billion to taxpayers would work out to between $5,000 and $9,000 per household depending on how its carved up. Pumping that money back into the economy no matter how would free up the credit markets almost immediately.  Save it and local banks have more than enough money to lend.  Spend it and sales will soar, jobs will be created and banks will still benefit and have money to lend. Even Detroit would benefit assuming they'll produce cars that Americans will buy.  And the stock market nosedive would be just a bad memory.

Finally, prosecute members of Congress like Barney Frank for Malfeasance and others who knew but took no action for Misfeasance.

Me?  Like Will Rogers; "I'm not a member of any organized party.  I'm a Democrat."