The Price of Wall Street's Rescue

By Robert Kuttner, AlterNet. Posted September 19, 2008.

Help must go to the ordinary people who have suffered harm, not just
wealthy insiders. That should be the price of a deal.

Treasury Secretary Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke are sending
Congress emergency legislation to put the bailout of Wall Street on a
more systematic footing. They had little choice, since the Federal
Reserve has already used up more than half of its nearly a trillion
dollars of cash.

Last week, Paulson played a very high-stakes game of chicken with the
rest of Wall Street, when he tried to halt the bailouts by declaring
that the private financial community would have to rescue Lehman
Brothers. But nobody blinked. And Lehman went under, setting off
deeper shock waves. Next they tried the same game with A.I.G. -- then
quickly reversed course when they realized that the stakes were too
high.

Zaroc Stone wrote:

It is, stop lying.