An interesting point that has regularly emerged on skewz is that the assertion that the recently passed $700 billion financial stabilization package is a bailout of Wall Street.  What the press does not seem willing or able to communicate is that Wall Street really does not exist any more.  The major investment banks that defined Wall Street are all effectively no more.  Within several weeks they all disappeared. 

 The best analog would be for Ford, GM, and Chrysler to all disappear within a couple of months.  The ramifications of such a blow to our industrial base would be clear and understandable to anyone.  The auto makers are household names.  Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bear Stearns, Lehman (and it's Lee-man not Lay-man people) and Merrill Lynch were sort of familiar names that people had heard of "somewhere." Each met a different demise or fundamentally changed to the point that it has exited a business that has defined Wall Street for over a century.  Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch had shot gun weddings with commercial banks presided over by the government.  Lehman just flat out died.  Goldman and Morgan cried uncle and reclassified themselves as commercial banks and essentially exited the investment banking business they helped to create decades ago.

However, the point is that Wall Street as an institution has been largely dismantled.  It can possible be resurrected, but that will take time and is likely to be fight as other financial centers are working to swoop into the vaccuum.  These include an equally weakened London, an emerging Shanghai, and a cash-rich Dubai.  In fact, many in the East are starting to use catch phrases such as "Shanghai, Mumbai, Dubai or bye, bye..."

Whether you are for or against the bailout plan, bailing out something that no longer really exists is kind of hard to do.  The implications of Wall Streets demise needs to be better explained to people.  Foreign capital rushed into our financial power houses to be swirled into the economy where we can enjoy low interest rates and plenty of credit.  Those days are over.  The institutions that helped to enable some of that are gone.  Their demise may be largely their own fault.  However, at some point we'll have to reflect upon and suffer the implications of their demise.

 What did go under the radar is the bailout of the automakers who were granted $25 billion in loans to retool to build fuel efficient cars just last week...this after spending years and millions of dollars to lobby against raising fuel efficiency standards. The under-reported irony is impressive.  Such contrasts should be highlighted by a better informed press corps.  

 The press should be reporting the basic facts in a crisis that impacts the Republic to such a significant degree.  Not informing the public about the death of the very thing that is drawing such contempt seems like a pretty big fact to leave out of reporting.