I'd like to point out that I also think the government bailouts are horrendous. Trillions of dollars in losses are basically being put on the taxpayers expense to bail out financial institutions (Fannie May and Freddie Mac had 5 trillion dollars in bad mortgage loans and toxic debt). The government doesn't have this money. They'll have to resort to taxation or (more likely) the printing press in order to cover this. I think that's very important to realize, the government can't remove the losses, it can only shuffle them around.