Wall Street's first response to the Obama team's bank bailout plan is understandably positive. The sale of toxic assets at less than 10 cents on the dollar with taxpayers putting up the rest while splitting the profits only 50-50 had traders trading.

Heck, the sale of anything at 90% off is attractive -- just take a look at Main Street. Something for nothing is nice, especially if there's no risk to speak of if that nice turns nasty.

Now comes the question of whether this plan will "work".

Without even getting into the one-sided terms of this Grand Giveaway Part Two, you have to ask: who is going to end up living in all the houses and apartments that, at the end of the day, make up these toxic -- now renamed "legacy"-- assets? 

The underlying problem deserves underlining: most Americans don't have enough money to buy those homes -- and now they have damaged credit on top of that. Those one million already foreclosed on; those tent cities rising in our communities? Those are NOT BEING ADDRESSED BY OBAMA'S TREASURY. Not yet.

The elites that Chris Hedges talks about may be thrilled that banks, hedge funds, private equity and the like are getting all kinds of cheap credit from the government. The latest FDIC credit extension is the last in a long line of cheap money for big business. 

But Americans don't need credit; they need income. Money to pay off bills, pay rent, pay mortgages, pay for college, and health care. Even an occasional vacation?!! They need livable housing they can rent.

What's still going on on that front is what was going on during the Bush years: wages are falling behind productivity. Here's how Business Week put it a month ago: "Dramatic efforts to control labor costs, while painful now, will limit losses in corporate profits...[According to the latest data the] Labor cost of producing a given item on average rose only .7% while prices rose faster, 1.8%...this trend suggests businesses are working hard to protect their margins." Take it from Business Week.

Alas, wages for most Americans falling short of costs and productivity?Some things never seem to change. No matter what they call stage three of this bailout plan, that's the legacy -- and the toxin -- at the bankrupt heart of our economy.