I’m not the kind of blogger who tells you you have to read something—well, not very often, anyway. But you really should read or listen to this interview of Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Cay Johnston by Glenn Greenwald, on the subject of the massive government bailout which will almost certainly pass the Senate tonight.

[T]here's a new study out by two economists with the International Monetary Fund. IMF policy. They published a study, in which they study 42 banking crises around the world over the last 37 years. And they concluded essentially this: bail-outs don't usually work; they often make things worse; and they are fundamentally a transfer of wealth from everybody to bankers and their customers. So, Congress should be saying, is there something else we can do in the short run to sort of patch this over and keep going forward? They're not asking that question. They're not even discussing that question….

…Who is the leading company inventing and promoting these toxic products, and getting people into them? Goldman Sachs, and it was at the time that Henry Paulson was running Goldman Sachs that this was going on. So, even if you assume his heart is pure and all he is doing here is what he thinks is the best thing to do for the republic, you have to look at where he came from.

Now, they allowed a Goldman competitor to fail, Lehman, the only firm that they said they would nothing for. Then, they decided to rescue AIG, the insurance company, on the too big to fail theory -- who owes Goldman $20B, half its net worth? AIG. And who is the only non-government person in the room, according to The New York Times, when they made that decision? The current chairman of Goldman.

There’s lots more, particularly about how the press once again has failed to ask any meaningful questions, and Johnston has some interesting thoughts about that as well.

This isn’t some wild-eyed conspiracy theory; it’s just the way the government works these days, from the runup to the Iraq war to the PATRIOT Act to the FISA legislation. They play on fear, say we’re in the greatest danger ever, and request vast new powers. If Congress makes even a peep of resistance, the administration concedes maybe 10% of what it asked for and then everyone pats themselves on the back as to how good we all are.

I’ve been undecided on this bailout thing, feeling (like most people) I don’t know enough about economics to know what the alternatives might be. But isn’t that the job of the press? Instead, their “probing questions” are at best trying to bring out details of the only plan we’ve been allowed to hear about. But in the last few days I’ve been reading people who suggest a bailout isn’t the only game in town, and this interview lays it out better than anything else I have seen. If you don’t like dealing with Salon’s ad wall, or don’t like Glenn Greenwald or whatever, Johnston’s forum post on the bailout is here on poynter.org, and it is well worth reading in addition to the interview. Before we mortgage our lives, and those of our children and grandchildren, we ought to at least have a little perspective as to what is going on.

If it’s not already too late.