More details of US corporate welfare, and current US meltdown.

The really interesting questions, of course, are those that follow.

Suppose the US government is sending a signal to Wall Street that it will bail it out, despite its irresponsibility?

Some will probably argue that this is how it should be. That it's a price worth paying to avoid economic catastrophe. The markets don't panic, things go on as usual.

Well, if so, will such people then also accept that capitalism *is* dependent on government as lender of final resort? That the whole system is a kind of Keynsianism of forced "tax-and-lend" rather than "tax-and-spend"? (Except without the egalitarian pretensions of good-old-fashioned-Keynsianism) Markets and governments "symbiotic" rather than opposing principles?

Will the true libertarians peel-off in revulsion at the whole corrupt system?

Will people just get *used* to it?

Will, in fact, the international money markets "punish" this behaviour by getting out of the dollar?