It looks as though the $US700 billion Wall Street Bailout plan will be repackaged and reconsidered by the recalcitrant US House of Representatives on Thursday our time. The repackaging will be an intricate work of nuanced politics and finely-honed economic engineering, a feat accomplished by the same treasury officials who hit on $US700 billion because “it was really big”.

The trick will be to reorganise the bailout in such a way as to avoid the impression that this amounts to throwing good money after bad debt and thus rewarding a long standing pattern of morally reprehensible behaviour.

The next vote will be on the $US700billion Saving the Universe From Immediate Implosion and A Host Of Very Bad Things plan. It should stand a better chance.