In other news, sweater sales in Hades have skyrocketed.

[packbat]

The House Republicans maybe actually did the right thing.

One group of House GOP lawmakers circulated an alternative that would put much less focus on a government takeover of failing institutions' sour assets. This proposal would have the government provide insurance to companies that agree to hold frozen assets, rather than have the U.S. purchase the assets.

Rep Eric Cantor, R-Va., said the idea would be to remove the burden of the bailout from taxpayers and place it, over time, on Wall Street instead. The price tag of the administration's plan to bail out tottering financial institutions — and the federal intrusion into private business matters — have been major sticking points for many Republican lawmakers.

Seriously, this greatly reduces the immediate cost to the government (an immediate cost which, I remind you, would be coming straight out of the budget deficit) while having a similar probability of putting a dam on the runs on these banks which cause the problems. (After all, if the government will pay back your investment if it collapses, rushing in to withdraw the funds while they still exist is no longer necessary.) Given that the only reason we're considering throwing $700 000 000 000 at this in the first place is because Paulson's staff wanted to name a really large number, why should we stick to any variation of this plan-to-have-a-plan?