>No one -- not Bush, not Obama, not Bernanke, NO ONE -- would have chosen to take on this much debt. Drastic times call for drastic measures. This was the most serious financial crisis of my lifetime, which I hope it remains. It astounds me that some have already forgotten, or missed completely, how close we came to the precipice, and choose to view it through the same old tax-and-spend prism.

Oh no, not forgotten at all. The whole [S]country[/S] world was blackmailed by bankers. "If we fail, thousands of businesses will fail, so bail us out". Huh? Why not bail out those businesses, many of which may even be doing something useful, and let the banks, which caused it all, go down the drain, where they belong. Why not? Because the banksters have the power to blackmail politicians and threaten a takeover, emergency powers and whatnot?