pardon my french, but . . . some feelings on the bailout

Sorry for the profanity, but this picture pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter:

Thanks to my little sister Brooke for sending it to me. Now, for some less sarcastic thoughts on the matter, I love what Jim Wallis has to say about the whole debacle, and how this is a systemic problem of our society at large:

“If all that come out of this crisis are some new regulations on naked short-selling, transparency in hedge funds, realistic credit ratings for mortgage backed securities, and a slap on the wrist for those who spent more than they had, then we have missed the point. All or some of these actions may be good and may be necessary, but no maze of regulations or army of watch dogs can ever change the fact that we have broken and abandoned the relationships that build up the foundations of a good society. As I have said before, this economic crisis is both structural and spiritual.

If we only treat the symptoms of the problems without also seeking personal and communal transformation, we will find ourselves on the losing side of this battle. However, if we fail to regulate our markets and hope that the “invisible hand” will turn all our vices into virtues, we fall into the painful naiveté that brought us to this place to begin with

Part of what scares us when we see a company like GM collapsing is that we can see our own vices writ large against the sky. When we hear that these companies have been producing not the best that they could, but only what would just get by, we think of our own failings. When credit freezes up and lenders do not trust borrowers or borrowers trust their lenders, we think of all the times that we have refused trust to others and the times that we’ve broken the trust that has been extended to us. When we watch the bubble burst, we see the futility of our own greed and our inability to say that enough is enough.”