Call it one of those precursor 'chicken or egg' controversies; but, which came first; the greed of the auto unions & management, which made American cars, uncompetitive in price?!; the gov't mandated 'fuel-saving' {dictatorial} "mandates," for "Detroit" to make fuel-efficient, small & light-weight cars, that few people wanted{?!}..Or, the precedent-setting, Wall Street/'Fannie Mae,' etc. humongous bailout?!
 
Personally, I'm leaning to auto-employee greed, of Both unions & management; but.. ya never know!? -- So much for our 'in-name-only,' "laissez-faire" {let-the-market-determine}, "capitalist" nation!
 
Ps. Given the proven benefits of teaching chess to the masses; theoretically, I could start a chess-center in downtown Seaside; but before this can come to fruition; a relatively measely..{by comparison}, 50 'thou' in gov't 'seed money,' could sure get this 'sucker' {of an idea}, 'off-the-ground'!
Pps. I'm not so much 'knocking' chess, as my own long-term ambivalence, 'track-record'; Re. 'work,' in general ..

It is very easy to pass this $25 Billion PORK package, because in light of the bigger crisis,,, the $700 Billion bailout of failed government-run banks,,, (is the word "failed" redundant here?) NOBODY NOTICES!
 
and the pigs will be in the trough real soon expecting the kick-back $$
This is a very good ploy by the "representatives" of ours, clever, in fact.
 
Another commonly used method of defrauding the public with PORK, is for fraud masters to wait around patiently with their PORK bills, for a POPULARIST bill to finally emerge, ie, any bill that is NEEDED in the view of the people, and one that will pass INSTATNLY.
 
A cogent example would be any bill that was passed to help 911 victims.
That is when the "waiter pigs" come running in with their big pork packages that have been on the back burner and that could never get passed any other way, and attach these measures on to the popularist bill. Brilliant! And anyone that votes against this bill because of that, would be instantly said to be "UNAMERICAN", or some such slur.
 
Aren't these bastids clever???
 
And who voted down the line-item veto,,, BTW???? the DEMOCRATS,, so they can keep the Pork rolling merrily along. Oh, and they DID this so the sitting president (repub) could not cut out Democrat PORK< while leaving Repub Pork alone. NIICCCCEEEEEEEE! Isn't our system wonderful? This is what you get when the people vote for a bunch of criminals ( a GREAT topic for a separate thread) and leave them to best decide what to do with a huge pile of free money,,, YOUR money
 
 
And just as an asside,,,, where was the "bailout" for me in 1976??????
 
How come the little guy bails out the big rich, guy but not the other way around?
 
Oh, I forgot,, ,I have to BRIBE the Big Whig sponsor of the bill with kickback money!
 
Hmmmmmm,,,,,
 
Keep voting RepubloCrat, y'all!!! Got to love them.