Four Simple Things to Look for in a Bailout Plan That Isn't a Taxpayer Rip-off

By Hillary Rosen, Huffington Post
Posted on September 23, 2008, Printed on September 23, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/99888/

Lots of smart people with extensive financial and economic expertise will weigh in on the bailout legislation now winding its way through Congress.

I am going to look for four simple things:

1. Taxpayers need equity in the companies we are saving.

If the government is guaranteeing rather than buying the "bad" paper, once those investments pay off -- and many of them eventually will -- we will have gotten nothing for our money. We will absorb the losses but get nothing for the gains.