The scene was eerily familiar. Instead of “we don’t want a smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud,” this time the total collapse of the US economy was the fear specter raised. And again, Congress fell for it. They didn’t want to risk being blamed for anything that might happen. They hastily passed a bill that should have been carefully thought out and influenced by experts instead of special interests. Now, slowly, the problems are emerging. Some of them are probably good, like the ability for the Treasury to buy parts of banks that was apparently snuck into the bill to the delight of many economists. More disturbingly, though, is the lack of transparency that is starting to creep into the whole bailout effort. As Planet Money reported, Mark Cuban, none less as the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, has decided to start investigating. And as soon as he started looking, he found blacked out pages on contracts with the Treasury department. That sounds a lot like the no-bid contracts that went to Halliburton. These are signs that the Bailout is turning into what many of us feared: A way to shift money from the average taxpayer to the Wall Street financiers who got us into this mess in the first place. Cuban and his investigative team as well as other journalists will be watching, often brought together by the Planet Money team.

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