Too little, too late?

The age old adage "Time is Money" should be heeded carefully by those that are attempting to bailout the U.S. economy. In an age where information travels at near light speed and where large transactions can be executed at the click of a mouse button, contagion can spread very rapidly, leaving little time to anticipate, let alone take action, when a crisis occurs. Rapid time decay requires rapid response but a casual observation of the current environment would seem to indicate that financial institutions are not up to speed with their reflexes. The Federal Reserve, despite novel approaches to handling the crisis, has been from the beginning struggling to stay ahead of the curve. It is no doubt a challenge to operate effectively when facing uncharted waters where past experience has no value, especially when being effective requires you to think at least two moves ahead.
Alas it is becoming increasingly clear (from the way the equity markets are behaving) that the 700 billion dollar bailout plan may be too little, too late to prevent a deeper recession (we will probably not know the final bill for a couple of years from now). This is because, not only does no one have a clue as to what the intrinsic value of the toxic debt outstanding is, but also because, with the ongoing credit crunch, every second that goes by raises the probability that a business that, in a "normal" environment would be considered to be healthy, collapses. Government institutions around the world may still have some more bailouts to perform in the near future.