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A big part of the bailout plan consists of guarantees and investments. It can be expected that a substantial portion of this money is not "lost", but can be freed at a later point. The real cost of the plan is significant lower than he predicts.

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It's a good point but only time will tell. However when you consider the lack of transparency and accompanying oversight (theoretically the treasury sec can just shove it into his private offshore account) and not to mention some sketchiness (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081110/greider2/print - I could list more not including the more public ones like AIG) - it doesn't bode well

It was only yesterday that many people thought that the bailout would only be a one time 700 billion dollar infusion...

Yeah... Thats what we thought about the TARP too. Originally, it was almost poised to turn a profit. Then Paulson decided that buying troubled assets was not the way to go. The lesson is not (just) that government has trouble ever turning a profit but that its far too unpredictable. Human factors get vastly amplified the moment the government gets involved because power moves from the distributed hands of the market to the centralized hands of congress and a few top bureaucrats.

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