I'm referring to Josh's "bigger than the both of us" post.

There, wondering about Team Obama vs. Big Bad AIG, he says:

We're paying them off, either in full or in part, out of fear that pulling the plug on these contracts would so destabilize the global economy that paying it is a better solution than not. But we're doing it for us. Not them. They are, at best, collateral beneficiaries. ...

Or at least that's the idea. Unless we're actually just chumps and Obama -- via Geithner and Summers -- have simply ceded the running of the whole thing to the people who caused all the problems in the first place. And we are just along for the ride even though we're paying the bill.

To which, I e-mailed Josh:

I wasn't quite this prescient in detail last fall, but this is the general reason why I voted Green in 2008 as in 2004.

And, still glad I did that today. I simply don't buy the  "tone deaf" excuse. This was deliberate, coming not just from Geithner, but his boss,the man whose No. 1 campaign contributor most of last year was Goldman Sachs and who was the No. 2 senator, to Dodd, in AIG money received in the 2008 cycle..

More thoughts on the left-hand side of the two-party duopoly at my blog.