I don't normally post about topics in the political arena, as most of my thoughts expressed here tend to revolve around technology. I just cannot resist though the urge to comment on this abhorrent plan proposed to bail them us out of the economic trouble they we are in.

I'm no economist, but I really don't think it takes one to see that the state of our economy isn't really brought about by some outside force that we didn't really have control over. It has been brought about by, as George Bush called it, a drunken Wall Street. Do we all share in this blame to some extent? I suppose, but your average working citizen doesn't have much ability as a single individual to influence the behavior of large corporations and investors, so any guilt that would be applicable may only be by default association.

Investors got greedy. CEO's were driven, above everything else, to raise their stock price. Not for the benefit of the company or it's services, but strictly for its investors. This is what is supposed to happen, right? Investors should be the primary beneficiaries of a company's success. If the drive is so large for that success and the pressure so high that it encourages executives to make bad long-term financial decisions though, can we really say that's in the best interest of the investor, or the economy at large?

And then we have the bailout. A fund of over $700,000,000,000.00 dollars (looks bigger when you use the 0's, doesn't it) to purchase up bad debts and toxic mortgages that should have never been made, and fund banks that made bad decisions that are now on the brink of bankruptcy. In plain terms, this is lunacy. It's no different than the gambler who tells his family that they just screwed out of their life savings that with just a bit more money, they can win it all back. If ever we needed an example of codependency, this is it.

How can we go along with this bailout plan and still fit within the spirit of the constitution and the free-enterprise market system? We can't. There's no way to justify it. Giving food and aid to people hit by natural disasters is one thing, bailing out people who made bad business decisions is entirely another.

If the wound inflicted by one of the most negative aspects of the human condition, greed, is not allowed to bleed a little, the infection will simply be contained, only to spread again.
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