In the real world, strong banks that made good decisions should thrive and weak banks which made dumb investments and lending decision should fail.

But in the parallel universe inhabited by Sec Treasury Paulson, the wealthiest banks as well as poor banks should all get bucket loads of money so consumers won’t know which are weak and which are strong, but will keep on banking with the weak banks. As CNBC writes:

“Nine of the largest U.S. banks were essentially arm-twisted last week into signing on for the first $125 billion in capital infusions in an attempt to remove the stigma that participating banks need the funds to survive.”