I'm trying to make sense of the today's news headline: House to Wall Street: Drop Dead. The bailout was opposed by ideologue free market Republicans who can't seem to envision any circumstance in which the government should bail out the business community four weeks before an election. It was also opposed by ideologue Democrats who couldn't see giving government money to a bunch of rich, greedy, Wall Street fat cats four weeks before an election. Finally, the whole thing is opposed by a strong majority of the tax paying public for reasons to myriad and complex to fully digest. This from the same public that complacently watched as the President and Congress have continued a war for six years that will probably in total cost something like 3 trillion dollars in the last six years without much more than a whimper.
I begin to wonder if the people of this country don't need a hard, bitter dose of reality. We've lived too long on borrowed time and borrowed money, in our little cars and housing development enclaves, thinking that the American Dream is still strong and will be served to us like those cars you see the kids get on MTV's My Super Sweet 16. Shall we have double digit unemployment for the second time during my lifetime? Shall the banks fail? Shall we all lose our retirement benefits?
I hope it doesn't all come to pass, but maybe we deserve to burn in Hell for a while. We're all guilty of thinking far more about what we think we deserve than what we can actually do... much less what we need. Whether today was a moment for heroes or fools, I think history will have to decide. I do know this, tomorrow will be probably different for me than today... and not in a good way.
The Dow is down almost 800. Shit. We are cursed with interesting times today.
said drgeek
on 2008-09-29 at 12:55 p.m.
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