From the left:

http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/23/news/companies/fbi_finance.ap/index.htm?postversion=2008092319

And the right:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,426783,00.html

Not that it would help us any, still, I would love to see some of these clowns go to jail.

Better yet, confiscate all their wealth, never let them accumulate it ever again (after all they have a LOT of restitution to make) and make them live the rest of their lives earning $1 over the official poverty level.

If I cannot have that, I'd settle for having them strung up by their toe nails. Then the finger nails, then shot them all.

Only half kidding.

What wonderful news. Would that their boss didn't work for crooks.

I've come to the conclusion we're just effed.

I still don't understand how a country can be stable with

1) Massive trade imbalance
2) Massive debt
3) More Massive debt
4) Slowing advancement of science, education, and arts.
5) A divided country
6) Poor distribution of what what wealth does exist.


If you stop to think about it, where are the competitive advantages?

Sigh, hopefully I become more optimistic in the coming days. It's not fair to the brave men and women fighting everyday, or have fought, for OUR freedom to have such negative thoughts.

D, I'm feeling your pain... except for #6, you've nailed it. #6 has been tried in other counties and failed miserably.

This bailout redistributes wealth from the collective lower-middle class to the wall street gangsters..

There is no longer representation of the middle class in this country. It doesn't matter what either side says, they aren't looking out for us.

Which is precisely the problem and is exactly why we're in this mess.

We're damned if we do. Damned if we don't. And the wealthy directly benefit the most. The rest of the country goes down the drain if we don't prop the wealthy up.

The country goes down the drain because the banksters are FLUSHING IT.

The "bailout" does nothing to fix the underlying, but does further reward those who knowingly created this circumstance.

100% agree. BUT....we might have dug such a big hole there's no way out.

We spend somewhere around 400 billion per year on INTEREST on our national debt. We literally borrow to pay the interest on money we already have borrowed.

You are absolutely right, D-Rod. For a pithy explanation of where we are and how we got here, the basics are covered pretty well at www.fedupusa.org.

I'm not into the big conspiracies. I have my own opinion on what got us here. That doesn't matter.

What does matter is what the solution is. I still think taxes need to be higher to close the gap. You can whine about entitlement spending, blah blah, but it's somewhere in the range of 20 billion not including medicare/social security, which are other animals. I still think fiscally stabilized government is the cornerstone of our economy. The value of the dollar is closely related to the stability of the government. A strong supports US companies.

Many folks feel a stable government comes from a healthy, growing economy.

I disagree. I feel a stable government provides the foundation needed for a healthy, growing economy.

stabilized or responsible??

Stabilized would include responsible.

We've been divided for a very long time. In some ways, it's a good thing.

Paralyzed divided?

I don't believe that's where we are. Government is, but I don't believe the people are.