It's so maddening to try to shrink down the culmination of the past week's news, but since the topic of the moment is the bail-out and the financial disaster, I suppose I will try to distill any shred of frustration.

First, I am not an economics expert (obviously). I try to understand it, but some things are harder to grasp, such as the complete vulnerability and abritraric nature of a market. Honestly, it usually doesn't make any sense since it's based on something completely abstract, consumer confidence. Or at least, how confident people who sell and trade think consumers feel.

And so we get to the failed bail-out vote in the House, a 778 point drop in the Dow Jones, and sitting on the edge of a crisis (or have we already fallen?).

I will say that people need boundaries. I think this is true with children and adults. I wish I could say that people left to their own advice will make the best decisions, but ultimately without any sort of guidelines, they fall into the same trap as children: pleasure outweighs any possible pain. So, here we sit in this mess made by billionaires because of risky investment and the ultimate goal of more money (honestly, once you reach a certain point of money, any more seems just frivolous and a waste). And while most Americans seem to think they should not have to pay for a few bad decisions made in a place they could only imagine, the result would probably be worse to do nothing. The free market/free enterprise/complete capitalism is an ideal that exists only in theory (quite like Communism). The real world does not have perfect information which is required for consumers to make proper decisions to reward "good" businesses (with their business) and punish "bad" business (with their stopping business). Which is where government comes in, where regulation is needed, to curb greed, lies, and the pursuit of money to the cost of consumer welfare.

The bill wasn't perfect, but it was a step.

The month before an election is probably the worst time for something like this to happen, because it calls for risky moves. There are no purely good decisions at this point. The American financial system is bleeding and we need to try to stop the blood from gushing out.

And now we wait until a plan does pass. Senate is voting on Tuesday, and will probably pass it, then off to the House again. Hopefully something will be done this time.

There was obviously always a lot more to talk about, but I'll just leave it there.

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