What to do about auction rate securities holdings?

Question

What should an individual retail investor who bought auction rate securities (via those crooks Smith Barney) two years ago and has been unable to cash them in do at the present time? Join a class action law suit? Hire an individual lawyer? Insist that Smith Barney issue an interest-free loan with the securities used as collatoral? I don't know where to begin on this one...

Answer 1

I don't think you can do much to get your money back.  Because a lot of financial institutions are in trouble now.  And the government is mostly on their side.  

Big financial institutions are too big to fail, as far as the government is concerned.  But small investors don't matter that much to the economy.