>Private profits, public debts
>
>But the morons running the place might still get multi million dollar severence packages
>
>This will probably be the biggest fraud/bailout in history, until they engineer the next one....

I wasn't going to bet against my wife, because we both wanted to bet on this happening on a near weekend... nobody to fight against.

How did we know it will happen on a weekend? Well Bear Stearms was taken down on a Friday... Patriot Act was enacted on a Thanksgiving Eve (or last night before the long weekend) etc etc... bad stuff is done when people aren't watching, and by Monday or whichever day it is, the iron isn't so hot anymore, it's sort of old news, the rage may have dissipated.

We only didn't know whether it will be during the olympic games (used up for Georgia), party conventions or hurricanes. Or maybe there is another big event we don't know about - finale of something or season start of something; no way we could guess the exact timing.

But it was imminent - because some big honcho from Fanny came on NPR a couple of weeks ago and went on and on about how things are coming out fine, the worst is past, and generally tried to inject 200cc of confidence into everyone's jugular. That's a bad sign, if there is one. If you trot out your manager to sprinkle optimism on the masses, it means you need to. If you need to, you're fried.

So, no bet.