The Meaning of Bailout

I hadn't realized that the turmoil in Congress is over the meaning of the word "bailout." To some, it means a rescue. To others, it means bailing water from a boat that has sprung a small leak. And to John McCain, it means to eject from the fighter jet because he's crashing yet another one...

I want to know the information that Paulson told the heads of the banking committees that made them jump and bend over backwards trying to get this legislation passed. It seems that it wasn't passed on to the rest of Congress, and kept hidden from their Republican brethren.

Because there's been a lot of whining and finger pointing about why the bailout didn't go through. It seems that my fellow Americans want to get a lot more in value for their money, maybe televise a few people jumping to their deaths from window ledges, or marching some Wall Street wonks from town to town to be tarred and feathered. Real life has to correspond to the gore and violence of video games until we're satisfied. Which is why Iraq is a good war...

So Congress will try again today and maybe the markets will stabilize. One of the best criticisms is that we have become too reliant on bailouts to save the mistakes made by private industries: banks,insurance, loan companies, auto makers, airlines, farms, oil, not to mention the foreign aid we give to other countries. We need to rethink the whole way that we are using government and spending taxpayer's money, from the ground up, line item by line item up for public debate. I doubt that either reformer running for president will have the gravitas to do what needs to be done, but will apply a little pancake makeup and hope you don't notice that it's cancer.