No ... Really. We're Serious This Time...

I know it’s a big complicated mess, and that they are still working on a bailout bill …. but these are the things (below) that I thought of as this has been going on.  Yes, I am angry, just like most of the public.  Yes, I know that some kind of bailout really has to be done.   AND I am still frightened quite a bit, because this isn’t NEARLY the end of it.  We are generally SCREWED here.  There are more big messes that are cascading down towards us that no one has really talked about publicly.  The mortgage thing & housing issue started THIS part of the collapse, but there are other entire sectors that will cost a LOT more than $700 billion.

 

But there’s the deal.  People took the “dire warnings” and doom and gloom statements from the administration with a less than wholehearted embrace.

Why?

Because they have been LIED to so many times by the all-knowing, all-powerful administration that they can’t begin to take what they say at face value.

And THIS is the crime of the Bush administration.  Just as the major crime of the Nixon administration was not the break in or the cover up – it was the erosion of trust in the Presidency and in the top leaders of the administration.  We still pay for that today, 34 years later.  A THIRD of a century!  And the reaction to the current assertions by our leaders has shown that, once again, our trust has been abused.

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(from CNN.COM – Campbell Brown)

NWW YORK (CNN) -- "I have great, great confidence in our capital markets and in our financial institutions. Our financial institutions, banks and investment banks, are strong. Our capital markets are resilient. They're efficient. They're flexible."    -- Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, March 16, 2008

"Our policy in this administration -- laws shouldn't bail out lenders, laws shouldn't help speculators."  -- President Bush, May 19, 2008

"Our economy has continued growing, consumers are spending, business are investing, exports continue increasing and American productivity remains strong. We can have confidence in the long-term foundation of our economy...I think the system basically is sound. I truly do."  -- President Bush, July 15, 2008

Today, of course, they have been proven completely wrong.

They are now telling us we are in a dire crisis, and that we must hand over hundreds of billions of dollars so they can lead us out of this mess.

What's amazing to me is that the administration seems a little surprised that Congress and the American people are not marching in lockstep with them on this and not fully appreciating the urgency.

Well here's why, in one word: accountability.