REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT

The perception most of us have is that we enjoy representative government in this country. It turns out that while that is a true statement, we can clearly see that the interests being represented by our elected officials are not those of the voters, but rather those of the dollar contributors. It takes both votes and dollars to get elected, and dollars are trump. National polls were showing just over 20% of the voters favored passage of the $300 billion mortgage bail-out bill designed to offload the worst of the worst mortgages onto the FHA so we all can lose on them instead of those companies like Countrywide who made the loans and should lose on them. The Senate responded to the public will by passing the bill anyway. Senator Dodd should be in jail. Some reports suggest he is instead being considered for the second position with Obama. Politics makes for strange bedfellows.
Indymac has become the second largest bank failure in history, in the hands of FDIC receivers. (Their high level execs also made some contributions to Senator Dodd, but apparently too little or too late.) Their is a list of 90 banks slated for possible failure, and believe it or not, Indymac wasn't even on the list. Scary how little anyone knows about the extent of the financial market problems. Scarier perhaps is the news that has hammered the stock value of Fanniemae and Freddiemac, the perception that they may lack the liquidity to address their mortgage position, and now the hinting around that there may be bailout plans by the Treasury and the Fed. First Bear Stearns and now who knows? For the vast majority of us who handle our obligations responsibly to be confronted with the probability that we are also going to become liable for the obligations of all those who are irresponsible or crooked such as Countrywide is sickening. But the representation we have from elected officials is zero. The efforts of politicians to manage the economy has always been disastrous and now can only get worse. Our dollar is shrinking, oil prices and dependency are killing us, and our elected representatives are clueless. If that doesn't keep you awake at night, then what?