"Disgusted" is putting it mildly

Reported by the NYTimes (by Jenny Anderson, Vikas Bajaj and Leslie Wayne):

Even as policy makers worked on details of a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, Wall Street began looking for ways to profit from it.

Financial firms were lobbying to have all manner of troubled investments covered, not just those related to mortgages.

At the same time, investment firms were jockeying to oversee all the assets that Treasury plans to take off the books of financial institutions, a role that could earn them hundreds of millions of dollars a year in fees.

And as the blogger EastHartfordTaxpayer mentioned over at CTLP, make sure you go delinquent on your mortgage ASAP... if you want to take advantage of America's new "grant program" that eliminates your mortgage! And for people who have paid off their mortgage, perhaps you could quickly take out a loan. Then expand your house by a few thousand square feet, refuse to repay that loan and eventually have the US government pick up the tab... while you live comfortably in a newly expanded home!

Hey... the US Government has decided to turn on the printing presses. So we may as well all take advantage of these new "grants." Right?

But seriously, I encourage you to contact your representatives on this trillion dollar bailout:

Senator Chris Dodd
Senator Joe Lieberman
Representative Chris Murphy

Tim White