My contribution was to provide a quote from an early US statesman whose beliefs about charity seem different from yours.

I never said that I do not believe in charity. I just want to be able to choose which charities I donate my money to. I resent having my money forcibly taken from me and re-distributed without my consent.

Against that background, surely investing some billions to support productive people who had a strong work ethic but lost their jobs because bankers (and AIG executives) got greedy, is not too much to ask?

If these people were hard-working and lost their jobs, they are covered by unemployment insurance (which is something that the business owners pay for). They do not need to be on the dole.

You talk about hard-working people being without jobs. The problem, as I see it, is that most of these people who lost their jobs are not willing to take another job unless it is as "good" as the one they lost. I will tell you that if I couldn't find work developing software, I would go back to tending bar - or greeting people as they walk in to Walmart - anything to pay the bills. Personally, I think that most people are too proud to do something like that. I saw it the first time there was a crisis in the auto industry and thousands of people lost high paying jobs. They waited for another job that paid as much instead of getting re-trained or looking for another (lower paying) job.