A few days ago, the government announced that they would be spending 700 billion taxpayers' dollars on corporate bailouts. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac tanked, a very complex situation involving banks, lenders, and people who can't pay their mortgages to WaMu (most likely due to the price of gas...). Well, the government bailed 'em out.. and I mean the banks, not the taxpayers. Over the next few days, it seems every other corporate entity has needed a bailout, including foreign banks and corporations. So what the hell is going on? Citizens are struggling to pay for food and other commodities, and these multi-billionaires are worried about how their stocks are faring!!! Worse, the $700 bil. problem was handed over to the Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson, the same dimwit who got us into this mess. I suppose it can also be assumed that when the government hands 700 billion from one person to another, a few million won't be missed by anyone who doesn't know what's going on. We are being taken advantage of, blindsided by the people responsible for protecting us from the very same problems that they are reinforcing. Parents can't support their children, workers can't pay for gas to get to their jobs, college students are being forced to decide between sacrificing their education or taking out loans which may likely build up massive amounts of interest that they may be paying off for the rest of their lives.
It seems there are two roads our country can take - we can continue to be the common class, taxpayer scapegoats, and give up more of what little money the current situation has left us with to bail out the people who sit around making millions of dollars for doing nothing, which may temporarily fix the problem (albeit we'd still have the War on Drugs, War on Terror, War in Iraq, high gas prices, the Patriot Act, a crummy housing market [blame the media] and Sarah Palin) or say, should the government NOT bail out these companies, we'd have an economic meltdown - we're talking people in the streets with guns, corporate mass production halted, food shortages, and a lot of dead or impoverished Americans. So what's the solution? Is there an end to this mess of problems? Well, lets take a look back.. The Great Depression was less than 100 years ago. Since then, we've had a World War, three or four other major wars, several global conflicts, assassinated presidents, and the O.J. Simpson trial. I suppose it's safe to say that problems have always existed and will continue as long as mankind does: we create our own misery through our differences that we somehow can't seem to look past. Today I had to take my African Grey to the emergency room (like I can afford it!) because of a bleeding nail. He's alright, he's squawking away upstairs right now - but nevertheless it couldn't help but remind me about how I and everyone else in this country have our own individual problems, yet somehow some rich dudes you've never met have to make it that much worse. I'm not ready for another hundred years of this abuse.. Are you?
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