You are welcome to find an instance of me "defending" any of those milking the Treasury for their own personal gain.

I was strongly opposed to the bailouts, even back when it was the idea of the Bush administration. If these idiots are "on the public dole," it isn't because I thought this was a great idea. I thought the outfits that screwed up should have been allowed to crash and burn into bankruptcy, along with the CEOs. The recession would have been much rougher, but at the end, we might have seen some real growth and recovery from a solid foundation instead of the current patchwork built on a shaky base of borrowed cash and political shell games.

You might have noticed that the "bailout" money, not to mention the "stimulus" money, has been going to places that have the right political connections, not the right business and financial credentials, which is exactly the sort of thing the article was talking about. As just one example, watch what's happening with Ford vs. the "government-backed" car companies.

The current system itself generates corruption. The more power over the economic world you give to the government, the more corruption you're going to get. This has been true for as long as human beings have lived in societies.