This is hopeful

"As of now, the Bush administration has only offered a concept with a staggering price tag, not a plan." - Barack Obama

Obama has come out pretty strongly against the fundamentals of the Paulson "plan," and stated some necessary conditions:

1) Regulation is necessary. We have to stop doing the anything-goes shit that caused the crisis in the first place.

2) The cost to taxpayers must be kept down as much as possible.

3) There must be oversight, not unfettered authority for Wall Street to just use the money any way they see fit.

4) There has to be aid for citizens and homeowners, not just Wall Street.

5) We aren't going to be bailing out foreign banks with US taxpayers' money.

More:

"The bottom line is that we must change the economic policies that led us down this dangerous path in the first place. For the last eight years, we’ve had an “on your own-anything goes” philosophy in Washington and on Wall Street that lavished tax cuts on the wealthy and big corporations; that viewed even common-sense regulation and oversight as unwise and unnecessary; and that shredded consumer protections and loosened the rules of the road. Ordinary Americans are now paying the price. The events of this week have rendered a final verdict on that failed philosophy, and it is a philosophy I will end as President of the United States.”