So it should hardly come as a surprise that Larry Kudlow said Wednesday - after the market closed off the lows following an afternoon ramp - that the White House might consider outright purchases of equities as part of its corporate bailout plan.

"One of the ideas is, if we provide assistance, we might take an equity position," Kudlow said Wednesday during a brief huddle with reporters at the White House.

Those who remember the last crisis should recognize the creeping nationalizations similar to what the US did with Citi and various other insolvent banks in 2008.

He added that the 2008 bailout of GM had been "a good deal" for the federal government (though the same cannot be said for all of the government's GFC-era bailouts, air travel certainly isn't going anywhere, and we suspect there aren't too many eager entrepreneurs looking to start an airline right now).