I presume you mean the idea that these desperate measures are justified to rehabilitate the economy, to put it back to some similar condition as it was before. Or, it's opposite, that we are better off in the long run if we just let the market take its vengeance and let things go down the tubes and restore some discipline to the system.

It never was a binary solution--do absolutely nothing at all, OR dump trillions of dollars into the system based on panic and political pull.

Last fall, many people pointed out alternatives involving rule changes, new regulations, and other things that would have helped deal with the banking crisis. As far as GM and others, large corporations have dealt with bankruptcies in the past. Why are they too big to fail now?

Targeted methods for helping smooth the financial hit on those who can least afford it included extending unemployment benefits, not taxing unemployment benefits, tax help for small business, and other things. Larger businesses could be helped by bringing corporate taxes in line with the rest of the world.

Maybe the recession would be deeper with a more measured approach, but the eventual recovery might have been stronger and based on a firmer economic foundation. In a couple of years, we're going to start finding out what happens when you pretend trillions of dollars exist that really don't.

The problem is, these solutions don't accrue as much power to the government as the other ones do. And so were discarded. I harbor no illusions that a McCain administration, with the same Congress, would have done much differently.

People say "follow the money." With government, it's "follow the power."