Obama could do worse than making this his rallying cry for the next few weeks

 
Someone stuck the "stock injection plan" as an option in the bailout bill signed into law on Friday. Call your congesscritter and demand that the Treasury Secretary exercise his option to take an equity share in any and every institution applying for a bailout. Don't let the government spend a nickel of tax money to buy worthless paper when it can use its authorized billions to buy ownership shares in the companies that brought this whole mess on in the first place.

You'll notice that Wells Fargo and Citgroup are signalling it's a fine time to be buying poorly performing banks right now if you've got the scratch, so the government will be in decent company if it decides to start gobbling up financial institutions right and left. It might even want to swoop in and take over Wachovia first, just to show who's boss.

Stock Injection! No cash for trash!