[Valiente]

Let's examine what has actually occurred here, shall we? Just for fun.

The U.S. government has printed jeebus knows how many billions to "inject liquidity" (i.e. dilute the currency). The U.S. government has also loaned a load of semi-insolvent banks (due to their own greed, short-sightedness and frankly, malfeasance) enough money to "ease the credit crunch".

What does this mean?

This means the same xxxx who loaned money at insufficiently low rates of interest to insufficiently collateralized "clients" are now free to do so again. This isn't a bailout, it's a firebreak, an attempt to burn down enough trees in a controlled manner so that the huge fire you want to stop eventually runs out of fuel as it turns back on itself.

The problem is that unless extremely carefully managed, firebreaks can either get out of control themselves, setting on fire previously unburnt forest, or they can be too small to stop the main conflagration from "jumping" the break, and making an even greater number of critters crispy.

Who here has the confidence that the same government that relaxed the regulations, printed the money and had to have its collective thumb pulled out of its ass over this has the management skills to stop this fire?

I haven't even touched upon the havoc this is playing in other countries far removed from the root causes, yet deeply involved in the far-reaching effects of these "adventures in finance".