Academic

One thing about Paulson's "bailouts" so far is that they've been painful for those that have accepted the help.  But it's not clear that the mega-bailout participation will be so painful - the big banks that signed on at the beginning didn't all need help, allegedly (at least not all of them did), and people have claimed that the outline of the executive compensation provisions won't be too hard on the banks - the details will matter, though.

Now that some regional banks are aboard, including the allegedly healthy Zions, it strikes me that it will be increasingly difficult to make the as yet to be announced details on participation to be along the lines of directives to fire the CEO, abandon all lobbying, and announce big reductions on options.

It does look like Treasury's going to spend everything it got in the first tranche though.  I bet there's a public choice story to be told about that......