Reading over the plan it seems fair and good – good for the banks and good for the taxpayers as it structures the bailout to earn interest or profits for the taxpayers. I especially liked the provision regarding CEO pay and having to pay it back if the balance sheets turn out to be in error or falsified. I'm looking forward to the conversation on this tonight so I can see if my favorable impression is correct.

Annie Kate
Birmingham AL

Maureen, thanks for the filing. The question that I have for ac360 as this relates is what took so long? And could you comment on if it was politically motivated? I am a bit of a cynic, so I wanted to know what you thought of the possible political motives of Paulson's ideas that he was going to wait 4 weeks to get the TARP started? 4 weeks at the time he said it was just past the election. Why is he doing that?

Many thanks!

The culprits of the collapse need to be investigated and prosecuted. They purchased insurance policies, aka “Credit Default Swaps”, to protect against their companies collapse. Then they purposely put our financial institutions at risk and used hedge funds to bet against the stock, causing caused their companies collapse and the stock market to crash. As their companies collapse these culprits are collecting billions in insurance claims from their credit default swaps. This whole scam will be known as the Wall Street Gate Scandal.

All I can say about this whole thing, is that I am afraid to open my mail from UBS!!

Interest or profit sounds like a good plan for the American taxpayer.
I am betting the profit goes to another bridge to nowhere.

Annie, what if the CEO's (prbly should be in small case letters) are found to be at fault...i.e. they knew they were screwing everyone in the first place...what then...can the taxpayers "tap into their accounts", and/or send them to jail... to recoups some of the losses??? Peace, Wayne

I will not go to stock market, because we have lost a whole bunch of money there, and God knows what will come next!!!
What makes me so angry today is even though my home is not registered Rep nor Dem !! Yet i receive an Emergency notice from WHOM else other than McCain, he wants my money to fund his failing efforts till now, even though I THINK he will win , simply because it does not seem to me that America is ready for this color change of the mighty man in the White House, and we thought better of U S A !!!

This bailout is ridiculous. Why should taxpayers bailout greedy banks that gambled on sub-prime loans and lost? Where do I sign up to get my $100 back from Trump?

Thousands at GM just lost their jobs. Give them a bailout

Something seems fishy with the stock market-maybe someone's cooking the books

I agree with the plan also. However I think that something else needs to be done about the career politicians. If they have made any money from the stock market (outside of their 401k), since they took office, they should be required to resign. That way they can"t put polices in place and then take advantage of the loopholes that they created. In the end what I am trying to say is this problem will not get fixed until there is something done about the greed in Washington.

McCain keeps saying Obama will raise our taxes.Do I believe him. NO! I remember both Reagan and HWBush both Republicans saying they would not raise our taxes. What did we get –fee, after fee, after fee, after fee. They weren't called taxes, but to me they weren't anything different.

It seems to me that this bailout is a no win situation for me. What is this bill going to do for me? All I see is maybe eventually the government will get paid? Does this mean in 5 years I can ask the IRS for my share of the dividend/interest back? Oh and how is this supposed to help with the rest of the problems in the economy like jobs, high cost of health care and much more?

I just cashed my paycheck today for the period of Oct. 1 through 14. I made a whopping total of $457.00. This is to support three people. I am looking for another job – obviously – to try to make some form of living, but there are not enough hours in a day to possibly make up for this. HOW am I supposed to live through this? HOW??? This is all so crazy. Stock market crashes? Retirement loss? ARE YOU KIDDING?

I am a registered Independent voter. I find the reporting by Drew Griffin on the Acorn Voter Reigistration issue to be sensational, biased, and irresponsible reporting. What do you expect when the only people that you can get to register voters are people who are so desperate for financial help, that they do desperate things to get voter forms completed. The problem is that Acorn rewards these people on an incentive basis.
I don't see what difference it makes because when someone goes to vote they have to show legitimate identification. This is a non-issue. It will not affect the election. I object to Drew Griffin's associating this "problem" to Barack Obama. To me, this is irresponsible reporting – sensationalism! I will never take Drew Griffin seriously, as a reporter, in the future. He needs to find a new line of employment.
I was an undecided voter, but this is one of the reasons that I will vote for the Obama/Biden ticket. One of the other reasons is the negative campaigning of the McCann/Palin ticket – they are trying to divide our country. Mc Cann made a big mistake putting Palin on his ticket – she is CLUELESS!
Anderson Cooper – keep up the good work!

Why isn’t anyone questioning the candidates or our elected leaders
as to how their portfolios have been faring through the economic
meltdown? The absence of information or comments feels slightly suspicious. If they are somehow immune or even making money from this, don’t we deserve to know?

I am praying today's wall street figures will finally give Bush and his cronies a clue. While they are bailing out banks and wall street criminals, and allowing the oil companies to bank record-breaking profits, the rest of us are losing our life's savings, retirement money, homes and jobs. Do you think they'll ever get it? Until they do something for those of us who deserve it and did nothing to cause this economic mess, we will have nothing to spend and the economy will continue to plummet – they might even lose theirs in the end!