How does a government bailout work for major corporations? Where are the $700 Billion dollars coming from?

So I understand what money is and where it comes from, now I just want to understand how a government bailout works for major corporations. Is this money simply printed and being brought out of thin air to be later paid off by taxpayers? I want to know in what ways will bailing out a major corporation benefit anyone besides the corporation itself.

The money will come from the taxes the government has collected over the years from individuals and businesses. It is not just printed fresh!

When the government doesn't have enough money from taxes and other revenue sources (fines, fees, whatever), it borrows. That's what savings bonds are for, and I suppose it has other methods of borrowing, too. The borrowing is why we have a budget deficit.

Corporations must apply for bailout funds, just like people apply for loans except that they don't have to prove creditworthiness. They do have to meet certain qualification requirements, like being publicly owned or doing a certain amount of mortgage lending - I'm giving examples, but I'm not sure what the exact requirements are.

Under Bush, apparently they could just apply and get, but happily, the funds haven't been released yet. Under Obama, the corporations getting the money are going to have to use it for the purposes intended, not for their own profit. LOL, that caused many banks to withdraw their applications, as they didn't really want it to help their mortgage borrowers, only to improve their own bottom lines.

Obama is requiring that corporations account for how they're using the money, and now he's requiring that top executives of corporations who take the money limit their salaries to $500,000 a year. I believe he also has requirements for the auto industry that they work on environmentally friendly vehicles.

How will it benefit? Bailing out the auto industry will save a ton of jobs, not only of the auto workers, but of the sandwhich makers they buy lunch from, the businesses near the plants, the businesses they will in turn buy from, etc.

Bailing out the banks is huge. Not only will it save bank jobs, but it will help people keep their homes and have money to pay for the rest of their living expenses. Also, preventing bank failures means we all won't lose our savings accounts, CDs, etc. Yes, they're insured, but the amount in the insurance fund was nowhere near what would need to be given out if banks failed nationwide.

Our economy affects other countries around the world. They are already affected. For example, as much as we complain about losing manufacturing jobs to China, the Chinese are losing their jobs because we aren't buying as many of their products.

yeah, Obama sure made those ING guys promise to spend it wisely. Ummmm... /sarcasm http://answers.yahoo.com/question/accuse_write?qid=20090204212540AAog92y&kid=MKdUMHbnJFftNc6O1wZu&s=comm&date=2009-03-16+23%3A07%3A27&.crumb=

The money is just paper with value represented by it. This value comes with interest charged per fiat, I think. Basically, yes they print it out of thin air and say it is worth this much. It gets its worth by the American promise that we have goods, services and assets to back it. This money, however, comes with a price that is payable to the federal reserve that makes this money. This is my current understanding of this system but I am not exactly positive.