Like you, I am wondering about the wisdom and necessity of this rescue/bailout plan -- whatever you want to call it. The powers that be insist it is necessary to keep our economy from stalling completely as companies are finding it difficult to secure credit, even short-term. The financial institutions apparently have to keep on deposit their cash and other assets as they need these funds to provide a statutorially required reserve that previously was at least partially covered by securities that have since plunged in value. Our fine leaders succeeded in doing at least one thing right -- increasing the FDIC limit from $100K to $250K is an idea long overdue. Maybe the rest of the plan makes sense, too, -- who knows? -- but I have this uneasy feeling that somehow some folks are going to find a way to make a lot of money off of it by doing things that are unethical, if not downright illegal.
I would feel a whole lot better about the idea if there was some way we could subject the the thieves and policy-makers responsibe for this mess to a whole lot of pain at some point.