A History of Government Bailouts

Slate has another great article on our frakked up economy. More importantly it links to ProPublica's History of Government Bailouts which as it's name implies, has neatly listed and organized all of our government's past and current attempts to save dying industries since 1970. It's a good resource for people who want to know where our money has gone in the past and where it will go in the future. 

Spoiler alert: from a quick perusal of the Bailout Aftermaths list suggests that the government tends to lose money when it bails out the financial industry and makes money when it bails out other industries. It kind of makes the double standard where we pour money into Wall Street banks with no strings attached and place heavy demands on GM and Chrysler seem unfair. On the other hand, perhaps this is why the government tends to do better when it bails out non-financial industries, because the government actually demands accountability of the Lockheeds and Chryslers of the world while letting the Morgan Stanleys do whatever they want with the taxpayer's money. I'd like to think that things will be different this time around but I'm not optimistic.