AIG Spa Retreat Meals More Than Twice Median HH Income of Maryland

Can I go just a little bit crazy here? I mean, what the f#!*# Is Congress insane? Do they think we're all idiots??? This AIG "retreat" just happened and now Congress is talking about more bailout money for these slime balls?

I don't know the economic ins and outs of the financial free fall we're in but it doesn't take a genius to know that this entire approach is wrong. In fact, I believe it's the so-called "financial geniuses" who helped get us into this mess. And who is paying the price? The average American taxpayer: you and me.

Where is the accountability? Why are these people allowed to get away with this? What the hell is Congress doing? Just taking lobbyist money to do the banking & insurance industry bidding? It sure seems that way. My perception is these are criminal acts committed against shareholders, the banking and insurance industries and most of all, the American public. Obviously this extends beyond our shores. Foreign banks have halted trading and cut interest rates but are sliding almost as precipitously as the Dow.

We are in deep and nobody knows what to do. I am sure there are reasonable approaches to this that don't include infusions of cash to the misbegotten. How about that idea that went around the Internet after the $700 billion was first bandied about: divide it among the population of America so each family receives a huge amt (I forget how much but enough to pay off a mortgage or credit cards or whatever) with stipulations to pay down debt. It certainly would stimulate the economy.

Nobody wants to use the "d" word except the pundits who want to stir things up. But, I'm wondering if we're not close to complete collapse. They won't say so, but when you see the brokers interviewed on CNBC, you see the desperation in their eyes and the fear this is so.

So now what?

McCain/Palin Ticket Nosedives Along With Economy

Wish I could say I am happy about all the Republicans tanking but...the economy is front and center and nobody is happy. We are, in fact, scared. These are scary times and I am glad my father, who would have been 98 this year, is not alive to see this. Dad lived through the Great Depression. He was not a child. He was working for Florsheim Shoes in downtown Chicago when the market crashed. He actually saw people hit the pavement outside his basement window in an office building. He never forgot the fear, the panic and the aftermath. Nobody who lived through those years forgot the aftermath. My mother-in-law, born in 1927, wore dresses made of flour sacks to school in Pennsylvania. She never forgot the humiliation.
My ability to relate to the Depression is through the stories of my relatives , photographs and books such as The Grapes of Wrath and Dorothea Lange photographs. The candidates studiously avoided characterizing the economic free fall we are in with the word "depression". They didn't even want to use the word "recession" although too late for that.
What I want to know is, who's going to be made accountable for this mess? We all know who is going to pay for it...we are. But where is the accountability? I mean, when you have CEOs appearing before Congress, such as the $186+ million dollar compensated CEO of Lehman Bros, Richard Fuld, wanting to know "where's our bailout?" without so much as an apology, you know we are getting screwed, blued and tattooed...and not in a good way.
Unless we, as tax payers, demand accountability and recompense for this debacle, we are going to watch our country become insolvent, our assets diminish and disappear and mortgage our children and grandchildren's future for some time to come.