What is Good for the Goose is Not Good for the Gander

What a difference a weekend makes. This is starting to become a familiar refrain in the financial market milieu - on Friday a bank or major financial institution is on the verge of collapse, then the  government decides over the weekend whether they are "too big to fail," and lo and behold, on Monday, the biggest bailout you've ever seen is rolled out with surety - the taxpayer is once again convinced of the "rightness" of the bailout and the stockmarket rallies on the news as the government goes on the hook again for the "good of the economy." 

There I was lamenting on Friday over the death of my bank and now it has been super-revived by the government, I should have known that it wouldn't be allowed to fail. As I was caught up in the rain dance of the Automakers, praying for their own shower of cash, I was starting to be lulled by the actual possibility that the government spigot was slowing to a trickle. Oops!  

When major (and well-respected) economists jump into the fray to declare why the major financial institutions cannot fail and why the Automakers should be allowed to fail and why one or the other outcome is good, better or best for the ailing economy...you start to wonder what parsing words are left to convince the conspiracy theorists that Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Mr. $500,000,000,000 golden parachute Wall Street investment banker, is simply not helping his friends. You do start to wonder whether the claims that the "rich" are simply carrying out the biggest heist in the history of the United States, having found the most effective umbrella, TARP, no less, (what are the odds?) to transfer taxpayer dollars into their coffers. All of this unfolding under the gleeful and ever watchful eye of the outgoing President who, many say, is simply completing his final, grand, mission.