A partial list of bail-out opponents:
Rush Limbaugh
Dennis Kucinich
Jeff Flake
International A.N.S.W.E.R.
Richard Mason (who was even more eloquent on Facebook than on Blogspot; he was vocal about this back when I just assumed it was bad-but-unstoppable)
A partial list of bail-out supporters:
George W. Bush
Warren Buffett (incidentally, DO NOT EVER TRUST THIS MAN except on his stock tips: every other time he opens his mouth it's ultimately to boost the values of his holdings, or worse yet to torpedo the value of things he wants to buy at distressed rate - that Warren Buffett is evil is one of the most under-reported stories in American finance)
Nancy Pelosi
Barney Frank
Megan McArdle
and David Brooks (as noted here). at least Megan knows what she's talking about - if you were still undecided then knowing where Brooks stands should help you rapidly choose the opposite position
Two political dynamics that I find similar:
1. September-October 2008: Congress needs to pass a bailout
2. Most of this decade: various European voters need to approve this EU treaty
Two long-term socioeconomic trends that also have instructive similarities:
1. About a generation ago it was decided that everyone should get a college education, and that government loans/grants would help foot the bill. Can you guess what effect both the increased demand and the subsidy had on tuition rates? Harvard's mammoth endowment rests (to a surprising extent) on the backs of taxpayers.
2. Somewhere around that time it was decided that everyone should own a home, and that government...
...anyway, one obvious difference between these two is that when a student loan borrower defaults, you can't repossess his education. The other is that the "tuition bubble" has yet to burst.
A social ritual that "everyone should go to college" or "everyone should own a home" has obvious effects on demand; that's fine, that's what markets are about. But when government subsidy gets involved, the unintended consequences spiral. Many people bought more home than they could afford, when a smaller house would have been much more prudent and still a comfortable living. I wonder how many of the people who go to small, uber-expensive (but not Ivy-caliber) liberal arts schools have really made the best decision.
Two factoids, of which the scarier sounding one is by far the less useful:
1. Worst one-day drop (by raw number) in stock market history.
2. 17th-worst percentage drop in stock market history.
Two factoids that are even less scary than the previous two:
1. +254 so far today
2. We're still in five digits, and have been since 2004