Bailout or Buy Out?

It's nice to know that when the federal government trough is open one of our local banks is not asleep at the wheel.
The Register Guard. on 10/29/08 had an article claiming that Umpqua Holdings, the parent company of Umpqua Bank has received preliminary approval of its application for $214 Million in investment money from the U.S. Treasury.
In their lame attempt to jump-start the economy and unfreeze the credit market the feds are throwing this money around like horny college kids at a strip club.

What is sad is that the idea behind the money was to open up the credit crunch. To make it easier and more attractive for banks to make loans-but Umpqua brags that they don't need the money for that so they are planning on "increasing our footprint". In other words they are going to use our money for mergers and acquisitions and "explore new market opportunities". Maybe they can use it to purchase some subprime loans or credit defaults.

The feds in turn will be getting senior preferred shares in return, the bank will now be in business with the government.
Ideas like this would have never been entertained even a few years ago, now it seems like no big deal.