Rick Newman

Prepare to be disappointed: The Bailout of the Century will probably do little to make life better anytime soon for the taxpayers footing the mammoth bill.

The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 may help avert the unspecified economic disaster that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke keep hinting at. But for most of us, it's hard to fathom this freakish financial monster lurking in the darkness, unseen by anybody except Paulson and Bernanke. Instead, we cling to quaint notions, like the idea that for $700 billion in taxpayer commitments, we ought to get something tangible in return.

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Megamillionaires don't usually mingle with pensioners. But like strangers in a jammed elevator, they're stuck with each other for awhile. Big problem. Because the two groups don't like each other at all.

That's why there's so much bile and controversy over the $700 billion Wall Street bailout plan that President Bush and his financial henchmen, Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson, are trying to force through Congress. To work, the plan needs to salvage big financial firms at the heart of American capitalism, so they can keep providing the money that consumers need to buy homes, cars, and even food. But those firms tend to be run by Gucci-clad patricians whose salaries are hundreds of times higher than the people whose homes and cars they help finance.

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It's not just a Wall Street meltdown.

The startling headlines from New York and Washington mostly involve staggering financial titans like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and AIG and government plans to stanch the bleeding in financial markets. But the shock waves from the financial meltdown reach into industries far removed from Manhattan money mavens and the government regulators on their tail. Industrial firms, retailers, and even utilities have watched their stock prices sink since the financial crisis mushroomed in mid-September, mostly on worries about the credit crunch and how it might metastasize into the broader economy.

Since Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy on September 15, sending the markets into a tailspin, the S&P 500 stock index has plummeted and rebounded—twice. Overall, the S&P 500 is down about 3.5 percent from its closing price on September 12, Lehman's last trading day. But since then, more than 20 companies have fallen by 10 percent or more—and fewer than half of them are in the financial sector. Here are the companies whose stock has fallen the most during the crisis:

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Fixing the profound, arcane problems on Wall Street makes Social Security reform or a tax-code overhaul look easy. No wonder John McCain and Barack Obama have been fulminating about the unfairness of it all—while sidestepping specific prescriptions. "They're treading very carefully because they don't want to take a position that turns out to be laughable," says economist James Barth of the Milken Institute.

But as the stock markets have tanked and the government has rescued huge, foundering companies like AIG, each candidate has started testing ideas for overhauling Wall Street. McCain, who said earlier this year, "I'm always for less regulation," has been more vague, consistent with his free-market leanings. Obama, ever the wonk, has outlined a six-point plan that includes some old ideas and some new ones. Here are the most prominent plans each candidate has outlined so far:

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