Over the past decade, the federal government has thrown a lifeline to everything from Long-Term Capital Management, a troubled hedge fund, to the airline and insurance industries after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001. More recently, mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac joined the club. But how many corporate bailouts are too many? And with Lehman brothers and the Big Three automakers now lining up to the trough for taxpayer-funded bailouts, has the government established a reckless precedent? On MSNBC last week, The Nation‘s Naomi Klein lays out the perils of granting high-risk loans without government regulation, directly implicating the failed policies of the Bush Administration and its grand strategy to build an “Ownership Society”.

–Will Di Novi

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