In other words, you're proposing what is, in effect, a back-door sales tax.  Yes?  Or do I misunderstand?

What I'd like to see is a Congress that would just cut the bullshit and let companies fail instead of having handouts for every asshole with a dumb idea and dumber backers.  This was the investment-banking version of the Dot-Com fever.

And that email has it right.  The response to this proposal should be simply, "Fuck you, Hank."

My proposal is simple: Put Glass-Steagall back up.  Let Wall Street drown.  I really and truly have no sympathy but for the poorest of the poor here -- that is the people who were victims of fraud on the part of the mortgage-peddlers.  But most of this was created by idiots -- in the mortgage industry, on Wall Street, and (yes) among homebuyers.

It's one thing to propose ensuring the biggest of the big in the commercial banking system don't fail, so that regular people can function, and because the Bushies would only fuck it up royally if they had to take over the commercial banks.  It's quite another to go parading around Wall Street with taxpayer money.

Let them die.

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.