This bailout needs to pass, and it needs to pass now. For those of you that do not understand what is going on, here it goes. Every single investment bank in this country has failed. That is not good. Last week, the LIBOR doubled overnight. The LIBOR is the rate at which banks will extend short term loans to each other. When it doubles overnight, no one is willing to loan money, and credit is nonexistant. A short term T note from the US government has such a low interest rate now, that if you buy one, you will actually lose money because the interest will not make up for the fee.

If the credit market closes off entirely, or even stays where it is now for longer than a week or two, the predictions are dire. You would be looking at an almost immediate 10-20% jump in unemployment. The great depression had about a 33% unemployment rate. The 10-20% rate is only what would happen immediately. Once those people no longer have income, they will not buy things, and the unemployment rate will grow even further, possibly even becoming greater than the great depression. However, this situation could be worse than the great depression. That is because we are dealing with inflation today, and they were dealing with deflation back then. If our economy stagflates at 30% unemployment, it may not be recoverable.

That being said, there should not be a three page bill, as the administration asked. The first thing is the issue of executive compensation. They should not make a lot of money. The argument against including this in the bill is that the companies will not get quality people, but that is bullshit. There are now over 100 companies asking to be included in the plan. If your area of expertise is in the management of major financial institutions, you will not have a choice to go elsewhere, because all of the companies that would want your services have included themselves in the bailout.

This is not the time for complete overhaul of the system. That time was ten years ago when the dumbasses started bundling securities. That time is the day after the bailout passes, when congress can sit down and give it thoughtful deliberation. (although i assume that once the bailout is passed they will all return home to work on their re election)

The point is that we are in a terrible place economically, and we only have a very short time to get the credit markets running. If we do not, we may not be able to recover. Pass the bailout now.