Another Bailout? Harry Smith Cries Uncle

This column was written by CBS News Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith.

AIG gets the $85 billion bailout, and now the federal government is charge of a trillion dollar company?

Wasn't the message from Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson earlier this week, the bucks have stopped here? No more bailouts? I, for the life of me, cannot understand it.

These people were gambling. Literally, gambling. And it's our job to bail them out. No, here's a better analogy, this was a Ponzi scheme, you make crappy loans to people who can't afford them, and we will sell insurance to the people who come up with the instruments that theoretically take the risk out of making those crappy loans in the first place.

All based on the assumption that there will never ever be a day of reckoning, that it's a no lose proposition.

You and I know there's no such thing, how come the people on Wall Street don't understand that. If this were happening on Main Street, it would be busted up by the cops, and somebody would be going to jail.