My friend Peter asked me what I thought about the [taxpayer] bailout of the financial institutions, so I thought I'd write my opinions here.

• Some smart people think that a bailout is necessary, which I tend to agree with.  I think most people are opposed to the bailout in principle because they see it simply as a way to help rich people keep their money.  But the rich people aren't the ones who would suffer if we went into a recession.
• In the past few years, there has been an increasing number of shareholder proposals to try to regulate the pay of CEOs.  I think this is going to lead to some of those proposals actually passing in the next go-round.
• Business and politicians are too focused on the next quarter and posting big headlines than long term growth.  This is probably the worst time for a bailout plan because it is happening around an election.  There's no doubt in my mind that congress will include billions in perks for their respective states along with a huge bailout.  I fully expect part of my taxes to go to buying junk mortgages, subsidies for rich farmers, a celery museum somewhere, an education on the proper use of sporks in somebody's district, and an educational grant to a community college to determine if vitamin B12 can help albino mice metabolize glucose.
• People don't trust big businesses, and I think the anger level is rising.  I don't like this because the only other place people can look to put their trust is the government through regulation and beaurocracy.
• The government doesn't know what to do to fix the problem.
• The entire world economy depends on the US economy succeeding.  Stocks crashed in Asia earlier today because they feared that the US wouldn't pass legislation to fix our own economy.  When we suffer, everybody suffers.  I don't like the rampant hyper-consumerism attitude in the US, but it does keep hundreds of millions of people employed around the world.
• Democrats' stock would rise in my opinion if they would accept some responsiblity for any negative thing that has happened in the past 8 years.  They continue to blame President Bush every single ill in the country.  President Bush is not my favorite politician, but to continually hear the democrats whine and complain incessently is just disgusting.

 Those a few of my thoughts.  I've avoided reading too many articles about the bailout because it's frustrating.