Matt Yglesias surprises me again with his four demands Democrats should make before acquiescing to the bail out:

Preserve substantial financial upside for taxpayers in the event that the bailout works (I think in practice this requires an equity stake in the bailed out firms, but I’m not sure).

Meaningful steps to restructure mortgages and keep most people in their houses.

A real second stimulus package.

Controls on executive pay for bailed out firms.

Reasonable people can argue about the first three points, but the last one’s a howler. What does Matt think would happen with that unused executive pay? Would the secretaries and janitors all get raises? And more broadly, if you think that inequality is the problem to be addressed today, is this even the tenth best way to address it?

UPDATE: Josh Marshall largely agrees.

No matter if you’re on the side of the climate change consensus or one of the skeptics, it makes sense not to restrict our options to emission-reducing cap-and-trade schemes alone. We should simultaneously study every possible weapon in the arsenal to deal with warming, including geo-engineering schemes like this one:

It should be possible to counteract the global warming associated with a doubling of carbon dioxide levels by enhancing the reflectivity of low-lying clouds above the oceans, according to researchers in the US and UK. John Latham of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, US, and colleagues say that this can be done using a worldwide fleet of autonomous ships spraying salt water into the air.

One of the most common objections to these types of proposals I’ve heard is the “unintended consequences” canard. Sure, we ought to move cautiously before attempting the intentional manipulation of weather on a planetary scale, and do so with the benefit of much more scientific understanding than we have now. But that kind of precautionary principle cuts both ways: The unknown costs of inaction may in fact be just as high as the unknown costs of action.