700 Buh buh buh...

Billion?

Is this what it's going to take to right the mighty ship of state? To once again be able to bow before the words "the full faith and credit of the United States of America?" Whose fault is this?

I'll tell you whose fault it is.

IT'S YOUR GODDAMN FAULT. That's right. You. The guy who let some charlatan convince you that you can absorb a $500,000 mortgage on your cell-phone-kiosk-guy salary. The guy who wanted a house so bad that he completely abrogated his financial responsibility. The guy who signed up for an option ARM, knowing that in three years his mortgage payment would be so much higher than his ability to pay that, now that the doody has struck the rotating blades, he just leaves the keys in the door and walks away.

It's tough to blame the banks. They're in it to sell mortgages. They told a happy story that had nothing to do with the truth and many of you idiots out there swallowed it whole.

It's like blaming the banks for the farm crisis in the '80's. Since time out of mind, farmland was about $550 per arable acre. Come, build, farm, live. $550 an acre. Until the banks told them that their land was worth WAY more than that, and loaned them money against land with a phantom value. It's not the bank's fault - it's really not. The farmer who smirked up at the banker and knew in his heart that his land was worth exactly what he knew it to be worth and not a penny more and told him to get the hell off his front porch? THAT guy still has his farm. He didn't lose any damn thing. John Cougar Mellencamp wasn't singing about him on Scarecrow. No, only the stupid ones lost their farms.

It is our responsibility as citizens and consumers in the greatest financial system the world has to maintain a modicum of common sense into the process and recognize a snake-oil salesman when we see him. I'll say it again: LET COMMON SENSE BE YOUR GUIDE. If you've just moved in to a 6 bedroom/4 bath palace in the middle of Happytown, and you spin pizzas for a living, YOU ARE BREAKING THE RULE OF COMMON SENSE.

Buy what you can afford. Do not buy what you can't. Simple advice that, if heeded, would have resulted in the Government not having to bail us all out to the tune of elventy grillion dollars. And by the way: it's not like the Gummint has 700 bill hanging out in a dresser drawer. It has to bond out for that money - essentially to print it - which will further devalue the dollar and contribute to inflation. Bailout or no, this is going to get worse before it gets better.