The Big Cow Patty with the Marshmallow Inside

I was listening to a lawmaker sum up the Bailout as a big cowpatty with a marshmallow inside and I thought it was an apt metaphor. We don't know what the cowpatty will bring to us and if the marshmallow is going to be worth eating. We know the cowpatty is not worth eating but we must take it to keep our financial institutions intact. (So they say) The marshmallow of course is the concessions lawmakers have put into the bailout--oversight, golden parachutes, etc. I dont think anyone feels to great about those concessions. If Wall Street was an auto shop, then we are the ones who have pulled our car in several times, only to be overcharged, still driving with the same basic problems. Now we find ourselves in the situation of giving the owner of that garage money, because if he fails then we might not have anywhere to take our car--we might not even be able to drive anymore. So we grudgingly give him our hard earned dollars, and watch them dissapear into his greasy hand, and he gives us a cowpatty with a marshmallow inside. We strip away the cow patty, because none of us likes to eat manuer, then we sigh and take a bite of our marshallow, only to find it stale and hardened, a leftover from better days.