Some idle Speculation on the US political/economy

So is this a deliberate "October Surprise"? Has it backfired? Or is it still going to plan, with more attempts to seize power still to come? If it's not the October Surprise, then any possible October Surprise may have had the wind taken out of it.

Or is this just the usual procedure of the powers that be using a chaotic situation to appropriate more money and power?

If this rescue plan is from Bush and Bernanke, why did the Dems support it more than the Republicans?

Did the Republicans turn against the bill (very unpopular with the general voting public) because they're in more danger of being voted out, or because they see all that money going to a Democrat administration?

And, remember a few years back when unprecedented danger needed urgent action outside of the normal debates, to counter the threat of Iraq's WMD? Is there now a mood of "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice ... you can't get fooled again"

Did crying wolf then cause the rescue plan to fail?

Anyway, what would you do with $700 Billion?
Never mind powering the world with solar and nuclear, or one laptop per child worldwide; it has been suggested that you could get 400 space shuttles for that money. But I think I would prefer to commission a new design of spacecraft, and build only a hundred or so. Nobody needs more than a hundred interplanetary spacecraft. Especially if they're big ones. And armed.

Is Will Hutton right in his commentary that some form of rescue is needed:

" Everybody tries to 'game' the system on their route to vast personal fortunes - whether short-selling, packaging up dud mortgages as prime mortgages or telling lies about their financial viability - and the result is that the system is getting wise. The best course today in any financial transaction is to presume zero integrity. Credit is drying up and with it the very lifeblood of the economy."

Or do you side with the free-market fundamentalists who say that it's better to bust than to bail.