@#!)$ In, $)#@ Out.

People are growing more and more skeptical of the bailout, or really the bailouts; or maybe there is just one bailout and the skepticism is just growing in proportion to its estimated cost. But, that is neither here not there given that, in the time it has taken me to pen this, the financial situation has no doubt altered course again.

That said, I have a little praise for Sec. Paulson. He and his boys over thar in Treasurah have realized that buying MBS from the banks is neither prudent nor, in an economic value sense, possible. Instead, they fed the money directly to the bank's general coffers. While that doesn't get me, the taxpayer, any equity, MBS was equity that neither I, nor anyone I knew, wanted. That is a waste of several billion averted. Let's stay on this track.