Bailout Cost: $6K Per Taxpayer...Or Nothing at All?

This is socialism for the rich, plain and simple. Do your children a favor and move your money out of stocks and U.S. Dollars.

Dr. Hanklove or : How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bailout! yeeehaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

$6K per tax payer... oh what a day for the 'have nots'... I hope you are happy.

Dr. Hanklove or : How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bailout! YeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeHaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Check the chick out she nearly keeps a straight face! particularly when she says "profit(s)". Good work! i couldn't do it. but then I’d be wearing full clown makeup at that stage just to fit the situation. LOL

This is the biggest money transfer in the human history........ From working stiffs to high and mighty, rich, powerful, lawyers, accountants, salesperson, politician, crooks, and bullsh-t artists....... How can CEO of Lehman brothers made $499 million dollars???? ........ Lehman brothers leveraged 30 times of their cash, that means if you made 1% profits on a gamble table, since it is leveraged 30 times, you made as if 30% profits, so everyone made huge bonus, salary, stock options, etc..... When you lose 1%, taxpayers will bailout??? These people are terroists to U.S. economy, should sent to jail.......

We get $600 rebate check but have to pay$6000 back??? Doesn't sound very stimulating!!!

This is crazy. Call your representative and complain!!!! Maybe this bailout can be stopped, but I doubt it.

Did the other commenters read the article? It's hard to believe how quickly everyone reacts to the headline number, when the government will likely earn money - not spend it. The government is making deals that banks would make - but the banks don't have the balance sheet to do it.

uh oh goodbye 260 point of the fake injected stock market. I just wonder how many actual people are still in the market? pretty soon won't it just be two guys and a monkey? oh sorry and a parrot.

I just called my Congressman and asked for the following: 1: I want this to be the toughest banking relief bill imaginable. Use the AIG deals as the template: 2: Any company that signs up for the deal must agree to executive compensation limits, or they can take a hike and face the real market, like big boys, and 3: The Government should pay as little as possible and grab equity stakes wherever possible. 4: This is very important. Don't let W and cadre of imcompetents rush though this bill, like the Patriot act, and leave us with something incomprehensively stupid. If given the opportunity, he'll "Hurricane Katrina" the bill and make it the apex of stupidity, and we'll all be ripped off.

6K or whatever. Stop throwing these numbers at us. Didn't they tell us that the Iraq war will cost us 20-30 Billion at most. Didn't the president tell us a month ago that the fundamentals of economy are strong. Was he lying to us or he simply didn't know what he was talking about. Now Paulson wants to bail out foreign banks too. HSBC, UBS, Deutsche bank and Barclays. I say why not bail out "Bank Milli Iran" and Oh, the "Taliban retirement fund" too. I hear they are struggling a bit. If any taxpayers money should be used then it should be offered as low interest loans to payoff the mortgages that are dragging everybody down not a handout directly to the banks. What is being offered is plan B while plan A was the failed plan for Bush to hand the social security fund to Wall street directly

Dear Aaron, Please help me understand something (I think this is something that some of your other readers might be interested in as well). The issue is the huge variance in trading values between open end mutual funds and closed end ETF’s. The open end mutual funds essentially trade once per day at the closing net asset value (NAV) of the fund. The closed end ETF’s trade all during the trading day, often at large discounts to their NAV. In this extremely volatile market, why would an investor want to be forced (by utilizing open end mutual funds) to wait until the end of the trade day to get in or out of a security? In addition, why would an investor want to pay par value (NAV) on an open end mutual fund rather than purchase something with a built-in gain (a closed end ETF at a significant discount)? For example, the world stock open end mutual fund Capital World Growth & Income Fund (symbol CWGIX) from American Funds trades once a day at its NAV (0% discount) and yields about 2.80%. Conversely, the world stock closed end ETF BlackRock Global Equity Income Fund (symbol BFD) trades during the day at around $11.22 (a 20% discount to its NAV) and yields around 17.00%. Would you recommend that I buy CWGIX or BFD? Please explain this phenomenon. I do not understand. Thank you. Sincerely, Mark J. Mohr

YEAH! for real! indeed! why should the US be left HOLDING THE BAG! after all it was our interest rate that skidded to near zero and our currency is the "reserve currency" of the world, and it was our institutions that packaged all that easy easy (and fun) credit into junk and then peddled it to the world assuring that, "It was gold" , Pure gold, Sheeesh yeah what has the US got to do with it! I wonder if in the fine details of a CDO contract was a "hey and if it all f**king goes sideways the US taxpayer will pickup the bill, trust me they good for it! They don’t know any better."

GO OBAMA!!! GO TO HELL BUSH

She cites the RTC but this is completely different. They were dealing with real tangible assets in the 80s. This is different. The TARP is mostly dealing with financial instruments-and most of those are intangibles. Not in the same realm. There will be a much bigger crisis on our hand when the dollar is devalued to the point of nothing. It won't matter how much this costs the taxpayers (who weren't asked to begin with) because a devalued dollar will affect everybody.

ARRGH! When will people figure out that if the top 10% of wage earners (the ones that Obama hates so much, and Biden feels the need to force "patriotism" on) Pay 90% of the US income taxes, then those same rich (expletive) are on the hook for 90% of the bail out!! If you are a "poor old taxpayer" making 50K a year, you arent gonna be touched by this! $6K per person is if we divided it equally- but OBVIOUSLY we don't- that would be a "flat tax" and for some reason no one can get it through their heads that that's a good idea, because then we can't tax the wealthy MORE than their fair share! Quit whining! This bailout may be unfair, people should live with their mistakes, but not at the expense of the whole economy. If we had NOT bailed these banks out, then watch out! Good luck getting your flat screen plasma so you can see the hairs up Manning's nose, or your $30k suv you can't afford to put gas in. Then you would be REALLY crying up a storm!

stockguy6545: yeah because financial institution LOVE to pay interest they think it's fun!, they think it’s just part of that “Hey it works both ways!” system, and just part of the game! they think it's fair and they think to themselves "Cool we love to pay interest this is very worthwhile", then they think "we are doing our patriotic duty for those taxpayers because we CARE about you America!", then they think, "did i leave the Iron on when i left this morning?" then they keep paying the interest and helping the USA! Hail to Banks! I went to your economics school!

I dont understand why these funds havent been provided as bailouts to taxpayers/citizens/etc that are in direct financial trouble? As it stands, this bailout serves the rich, but does nothing to help the majority of citizens. it is robin hood's nemesis - steal from the poor and give to the rich. interestingly, look at the similarity between this and the SnL bailout that Bush Sr implemented in teh 80's.

How could you have a profit from toxic paper that have been leveraged thirty to forty to one? Wake up demand all the facts. How can you have a five year war without paying for the war? The answer; deficits don't matter, according to the Bush administration.