The Global Financial Incompetence Bailout
"The savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s (commonly referred to as the S&L crisis) was the failure of 747 savings and loan associations in the US. The ultimate cost of the crisis is estimated to have totaled around $160.1 billion, about $124.6 billion of which was directly paid for by the U.S. government—that is, the U.S. taxpayer, either directly or through charges on their savings and loan accounts—which contributed to the large budget deficits of the early 1990s" - Wikipedia
Twenty-thirty years ago the US tax payer bailed out banks that crashed because they consistently gave bad loans. Essentially, they made poor business decisions, made bad business plans, and their businesses deservedly went under. The US Government, with taxpayer's money, then rewarded them for their incompetence by giving them <!-- pagebreak -->billions and billions of dollars. This of course allowed the poorly-run businesses to survive another 20 years before crashing again, only to be rewarded again with billions of dollars for their incompetence. Citigroup, the biggest bank in the world, just received $20 billion for being a bunch of royal idiots twice running. This is the US, world trumpeter of the free market and darwinist economics?

September 11, 2001, the same airline companies that receive huge annual government subsidies, free land for airports, no tax on airplane fuel (keroseen), and that did not provide proper airport security, signifigantly contributing to the deaths of thousands of people, were rewarded for their mismanagement with over $7 billion of taxpayers money.

Now US, French, and German automakers are crying for help and governments are rushing to their aid. I think it would be much better if the car companies were allowed a quick death. The savings can be put into environmentally sustainable public transport systems, national healthcare, and alternative energy.

I never thought I would be expressing free market capitalist ideology in my old age, but yes, let the banks, car and
airline companies rot. All of non-electrified sub-Saharan Africa could be provided with small-scale solar for less than 70% of what OECD countries spend on subsidies to the fossil fuel industries annually (Annual government subsidies to gas, oil and coal companies is over 235 billion USD!). If only 600 km2 of the Sahara desert are covered with PV cells, it would match all existing power station production worldwide. The wind-power potential of Texas, N. Dakota and Kansas is enough to meet the energy demand of the entire US. Source: Jeremy Leggett's "Half Gone: Oil, Gas, Hot Air and the Global Energy Crisis") Mismanaged companies should close, and those that are well managed do not need taxpayer bailout.