The Republican Party adopted 3 weeks ago explicitly opposes government bailouts of private companies. Here is the exact quote (from the section “Rebuilding Homeownership”):

We do not support government bailouts of private institutions. Government interference in the markets exacerbates problems in the marketplace and causes the free market to take longer to correct itself. We believe in the free market as the best tool to sustained prosperity and opportunity for all.

I wonder how this affects things. No one is too happy about bailing out wall street the Dems seem to want to punish evil doers as as they bail them out. The GOP side seems to want to avoid doing anything at all. My own opinion is that we should let the economy crash and see if anything valuable survives, but I realize that this is just my own nihilistic attitude towards institutions. This crisis is a very Darwinian test of our economic system and I am not sure that helping the unfit survive is a good idea. I am, however, worried about my own retirement accounts, of which about 2/3 is in stock or stock funds.