I continue to advocate a five point alternative to the Wall Street bailout giveaway:

[Political Heretic]

Vote for PH for President in 2016! :D

(1) Follow the model utilized during the Savings and Loan crisis of the 1980s, which is proven to work and does not allow the same room for wall street profiteering that the current money give-away does.

(2) An automatic in-person audit of every financial institution in trouble, and if necessary, the appointment of a special prosecutor / task force assigned to prosecute criminal misconduct.

(3) The reimplementation of a small tax on stock transactions, something we've already done in the past in our country and something that most other countries (including the UK) already do. The revenue generated from even a 0.25% tax would total to many billions (app. 150 billion in first year alone) and could be used to help fund Wall Streets own bailout in the short term, and partially help paying down national debt in the long term.

(see: http://rightdemocrat.blogspot.com/2008/09/thom-hartmann-how-wall-street-can-bail.html|Hartmann: How Wall Street Can Bail Itself Out>)

(4) A bottom-up rather than "trickle down" approach to financial recovery. Instead of a "bank bailout" aimed at helping them unload "toxic" assets, a "borrower bailout" - eliminate the "toxic" assets by negotiating agreements between lenders and borrowers that borrowers can afford in the easier cases, and buy-out borrowers in the worse cases. No bad assets no problem, except of course for the fact that Wall Street can't get fat off the "rescue" process.

(5) More direct, short term, stimulus spending, aimed at job creation through the so-called "shovel ready" infrastructure projects. Obama said prior to the last stimulus bill that it wouldn't be a "public works project" like in the days of FDR. But he never made the case for why not. We should have such a program as it is incredibly effective stimulus and helps real people in need of real jobs, as well as helps deal with our crumbling infrastructure, which is a long term problem.

I consider this to be feasible, if there was the political will and the public pressure. Though I admit that at this point it may be too late to reverse course from this corporate fat cat giveaway.