Now that the Senate has passed through the Senate, the heat is on the House to give it the green light. But take a look at the Bill, full of pork barrelling give-aways - including ridiculous items like the exemption of excise on certain wooden arrows and huge dollops of tax relief - that make the elected representatives look good. And you start to wonder. What's clear is that US politicians have given up any claim on global leadership because they have failed to comprehend the enormity of this global issue. More on the giveaways from the Los Angeles Times.

What's clear is that this piece of legislation, thrown together quickly with lots of arm twisting, will not save global markets. The package is vague on many areas, like the pricing of the securities the US Government intends to purchase. And you can forget about stronger regulations for financial institutions.

As Bill Clinton's former labour secretary Robert Reich writes, it won't make any difference: America faces a long and painful recession.

"Regardless of the Wall Street bailout, typical Americans have run out of coping mechanisms to keep up their standard of living. That means there is not enough purchasing power in the economy to buy all the goods and services it is producing. We are finally reaping the whirlwind of widening inequality and ever more concentrated wealth.

"The only way to keep the economy going over the long run is to increase the real earnings of middle- and lower-middle-class Americans. The answer is not to protect jobs through trade protection. That would only drive up prices of everything purchased from abroad. Most routine jobs are being automated anyway. Nor is the answer to give tax breaks to the very wealthy and to giant corporations in the hope they will trickle down to everyone else. We have tried that and it hasn't worked. Nothing has trickled down. The Wall Street bailout may be necessary in order to keep credit markets working, but it is almost irrelevant to this larger and more important story."