We Might as Well Share in the Rewards

From today's Wall Street Journal:

'The U.S. government is expected to take stakes in nine of the nation's top financial institutions as part of a new plan to restore confidence to the battered U.S. banking system, a far-reaching effort that puts the government's guarantee behind the basic plumbing of financial markets."

You can make the case, as I have, that the government should not be in the bailout business. (It simply isn't the way capitalism is supposed to work.)

But, if taxpayers are going to be on the hook for guaranteeing loans to AIG and bailing out the banks, we might as well share in the upside.