They shouldn't have given the money to the Banks if anything they should have payed 100k or 25% of your house off and required the banks to refinance you with the lower payment. That would have killed 2 birds with 1 stone. Offset the housing price slump and put money in our pockets, from lower house payments, for us to spend to get the economy going again.
Worst place to put it. You don't want to give it to the people at the very bottom. All it will do from there is go straight back to the corporations in the middle of the chain, and then maybe to their suppliers...
No, a better place to have spent the bail out money would have been on small US Companies that produce their products here.
Hell, There's 200,000 - 300,000 Private Practices (Doctors) in the country. Giving them a Million each would have only cost $200 - $300 Billion, and if they were forced to spend it on updating their offices it would have boosted our medical care, helped middle-sized firms like Boston Scientific and the BioTechs, and also contributed to Dow (Plastics), United States Steel, and on up the chain (and then back down the chain.)
This idea of putting money in the hands of the banks was STUPID, but putting it in the hands of the End Consumers would be even stupider. Too many of them are worried about losing their jobs, and instead of using that money to buy things they would have likely socked it away, or used it to pay off existing debts, which does not do jack shit to boost the economy. The houses and cars that were bought have already been produced, we need new goods to be produced and bought to get the economy going again.
No, the private practices, and the small businesses (specifically manufacturers with factories in the United States) would have been the best place to put the money. Many of those companies are lead by people that were their when those firms opened their doors and built the companies from the ground up. They aren't going to pull a Bank Executive and walk off with the money. They are going to invest it to grow their business, and thus provide more jobs, which will start a snow ball of additional jobs.
Of course, the politicians have their heads so far up the lobbyists asses that it's a miracle they haven't already effectively vanished from the Earth. It's bad enough that all they say comes out garbled due to the fact that their mouth's are full of shit.
... ... ... ... out. 
