Cash for Clunkers Program

[Ibby]

The problem, Madman, is that when those businesses fail... lots of real, actual people lose out with it. Not just the execs - they've got plenty to fall back on - but all the workers all the way down the line who are suddenly out of a job, losing their home, out on the street, in dire need of our help as moral people, not to mention a social and fiscal drain on society. If we can solve the problem of absurd executive compensation, the ideal solution within our current system is to help the businesses survive. Society stays productive, people stay working and earning money, and the teetering balancing act that is the capitalist economy stays upright a little longer.
Krugman makes a good if inelegant point in today's NYT:

So it seems that we aren’t going to have a second Great Depression after all. What saved us? The answer, basically, is Big Government.