Question: Would one expect Warren Buffet to be a recepient, indirectly, if there are handout/bailouts to the insurance industry? His core business, of course, is insurance.

Words don't mean anything anymore, since the Republicans have decided that all words are polymorphous, and mean anything that they went them to mean in different circumstances.

But I think it should be obvious to all that the people get highly indignant over the notion of 'all for one, one for all', in other words, Socialism. Unless it appliess to our dear beloved Plutocrats.

Whenever potatoes go wanting, or gasoline becomes dear, or the Plutocrats fret and moan about having to surrender Billions of profit--then Plutocratic Socialism is, by all means, the first order of the day. We should write a big fat check immediately, without even blinking, as if we were all channeling Sarah Palin. After all, they know best. And if they use the money we give them to buy up all their less powerful competitors, instead of loaning our friends and neighbors the money to buy a car or a house, well, again, they know best.

They don't even need to give us an explanation. Hell, we wouldn't understand it anyway. Just keep those potatoes coming and drill baby drill.

See, plutocrats are like Dolphins. And the rest of us are like Tuna. When the great economic net of reality catches us all up--the Plutocrats are released and set free--the rest of us become a tuna fish sandwich.

Ya gotta admit -- the TARP program is funny.

We give PNC $7.7 billion, and it buys NatCity for $5.6 billion and grabs NatCity's tax losses (around $20 billion and counting*).

* I suppose these tax losses can be applied against PNC's past income and PNC will get a refund -- an additional check from Uncle Sam.

La commedia is never ending!

Dean Baker says;

Let's stand up for Joe the Plumber and stop giving tax dollars to the incredibly rich.

Oh yeah? Well I never head of a poor man creating jobs!

We gotta give these rich people tax cuts so they can invest and create jobs and get this economy moving again.

And we gotta pay our executives large compensation packages cause we want the best people. And don't go asking why this line of thought doesn't apply to the assembly line workers
cause they're not running the company.

And by the way, I'm in the market too, and I get capital gains. Me and Dick Cheney both made capital gains when I sold my 4 Halliburton shares,
and he sold his 60,000 Halliburton shares.

And I want to privatize Social Security, because like Our President Bush said, I can invest my money better than the government can!

I think it’s very telling who needs whom.
Sales are down at many locations and not just the big-ticket items.

People who have money are not spending; so much for the idea that it’s all because we taxed the rich, business is shutting down.

In Arizona there is a new ad campaign showing a farmer, with a tractor in the background, crying about how he will not hire new workers, because he’s afraid of the Obama tax plan. People like Obama have never had a business, so how would they know Blah Blah Blah”

1st I wish we had a counter ad, showing how these farmers never really hired anyone but undocumented workers.

2nd We need to show some successful Democrats who have had successful businesses, who hired despite the taxes

3rd I guess this farmer doesn’t understand that when consumers willing to part with their money, and his business picked up, to the point that his current staff couldn’t keep up with demand. I guess he’d be one stupid businessperson to not increase his hiring, because of his fear of Obamas tax plan.

Give me a break I wish I were in a higher tax bracket because it would mean I was making more money.

If the promise of the Industrial Revolution is going to now, make me a slave to the rich and the manufacturing giants, then I say we need land reform, and give the people the right to go back to the land for their survival.

From the good land I'll put a roof over my head; I'll have livestock for food and clothing, and we’ll see who needs whom.

It was only a matter of time. Insurance companies put their huge pools of money, which they receive in the form of premiums, into the stock market and other investments. When the market goes down, the insurance companies no longer have the required reserves.

My health insurance premiums just went up over 28% over last year. The reason given in the letter I received today was higher medical costs and higher use of medical services. Since I once worked for the industry, I know the real reason is losses in the stock market. Every time the market goes down, the premiums go up. But do they ever admit this is the reason for the premium increases? Never.

My first reaction to the bailout news was that it was going to become a new strategy for big corporations to obtain corporate welfare.

But it would be a raw deal for anyone to lose their policy if they have to start over at higher premiums with a new insurer. (I don't know if the Gov. insures insurance like it does bank deposits does it?)

I don't disagree with you on the need to get lending going. I'm not sure bank mergers are necessarily detrimental to this, since the total assets and liabilities remain the same and some uncertainty risk is removed.

I'd be a lot more upset if the purchase had been for cash, using the Treasury infusion. Quite a bit of the MSM reporting hasn't been making that distinction.