I DISAGREE WITH ATRIOS AND JOSH

They both wonder (here & here) why it took Paulson so long to realize the obvious: the liquidity problem is caused by a solvency problem and simply buying pieces of the Big Shitpile from banks won't fix the solvency problem. My guess is that Paulson and Bernanke are bright enough to realize this but they had to deal with the Free Market Fairy Fundamentalists, so they couldn't initially propose directly investing in banks and other financial institutions because that really would be socialism. The original plan was bad enough for some of the FMFF, like this one:

Sen. Jim Bunning: The Bailout Is Un-American
September 23, 2008 03:09 PM ET Luke Mullins
U.S. News & World Report

Republican Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky came out swinging during a hearing on Capitol Hill Tuesday, calling Treasury's plan for the biggest financial bailout since the Great Depression "un-American."

From Bunning's prepared statement:

[snip]
The Paulson plan will not bring a stop to the slide in home prices. But the Paulson plan will spend 700 billion taxpayer dollars to prop up and clean up the balance sheets of Wall Street. This massive bailout is not the solution, it is financial socialism, and it is un-American.

I have to give Bunning credit for realizing that the original plan isn't the solution but does anyone think he would approve of the Treasury directly investing in financial institutions?