Read it yourself: Complete text of bailout bill

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A few quick links and thoughts this morning, on what could be a historic day for our country. Or not -- because even if the bailout passes, history may ultimately see it as just the third or fourth in a string of ever-larger government interventions in the late, great American free market.

Here’s a complete text of the bailout bill the House will vote on in a few hours. Where’s the debate, you ask? Where’s the deliberation? Debate? Deliberation? Man, what century are you from?

The Citigroup take-under of Wachovia was messy and required assistance from the FDIC to avoid failure.

Global investors don’t like the idea of bank failures, or near-failures. Even as Congress rushes to give the government $700 billion in spending cash, the Federal Reserve this morning is frantically trying to inject liquidity into the banking system. ‘There is just no way to describe the size of what the federal reserve is putting out there,’ said CNBC’s Steve Leisman.

The U.S. economy continues to weaken. Housing prices continue to decline. The government is poised to take a much larger role in a weakening economy. (Have a problem with your mortgage? Call your congressman, ask the government to fix your loan).

This is not a slippery slope -- we already slid down the slope. This is the cliff. It is almost impossible to imagine the events of the next year or so without additional large government interventions. Governments like ours don’t say no.

One more: The L.A. Times columnist Al Martinez lived through the Great Depression, and writes that the current situation really worries him.

-- Peter Viles

Your thoughts? Comments?