On Friday the folks on Marketplace were saying yeah, expect a weekend bailout.

This has been mounting all week.

As for the election, this is one part of a bigger picture on why I don't believe anyone's promise to lower taxes. The overall cleanup is going to be too costly. New programs like healthcare will take a second seat to getting existing programs operating at an optimal level, and that alone could take years.

Yeah, it won't exactly crash. It will be quickly and neatly rescued, with any taxpayer-borne expenses hidden in the endnotes. Paulson has been nothing if not efficient at that sort of thing this year.

For the most part this isn't something that will show up as a discretionary budget item that you're clearly paying for with your taxes. It will be a deep wound to the balance sheet and the economy that will take years to heal. To some extent that would be the case if the government did nothing at all. They're just acting at a time when they can preserve "the market" from scary repercussions that could wipe out many more people's savings and investments, and cynically, when there are folks -- capitalists, to be blunt -- who are ready to take on a burden with the expectation of making money off it.

But yeah, this makes the S&L bailout look like a weekend at the beach.

Thank you so much stilicho for that synopsis. Much appreciated.

Oops stilicho, that didn't happen. yikes. The sky fell. Chicken Little was right this time. Brokergeddon.