Bad things happened when they suggested the Patriot Act might have a few problems.

You really think anyone who opposes this bill might get anthrax-laced letters? Dammit man, that's so fin de siecle! Anyway, there's no time to waste on the mail service! And umm... has anybody heard ONE SINGLE VOICE from the Dems speaking out in protest yet? No, I thought not.

As for your patently ridiculous claim:

Link reference for current GDP valued at $14 trillion on my name.

What are you suggesting here? That your good name as an honest worker is under-writing the USA's $14 trillion GDP???!

Well, actually...

Sorry if the black humour doesn't go down well with your beer, but what else have we got?

Too much of nothing can make a man ill at ease.

One man's broccoli is another man's peas.

It really doesn't matter a hill of beans whether little people like you and I support this proposal or not, or how much noise we care to make in opposing it. As long as "financial markets" around the globe embrace it - and at this stage it seems likely they will, but still far from certain - then it's a done deal.

Unless of course the corporate media come out opposing it. BWAAAHAHAHA!

What's really funny is that the Chinese, Japanese, Europeans and others whose investments are holding up the US economy surely don't care too much about what this bailout might cost the lowly US taxpayer.

Consider Imperial Japan after WWII, a nation beset by crisis of every kind, a debt of aggression which threw several generations into grinding poverty. They eventually came through it with their national pride intact (for better or worse) but the same extraordinary levels of social cohesion are nowhere to be seen in BushWorld today.

I see gangs roaming the streets and a booming Black Market. I see Third World levels of economic disparity, where millionaires in limos cruise nonchalantly past whole families huddled in cardboard boxes.

The only positive I see in all this is that McCain's USA will not be able to afford an Armed Forces, privatized militia mercenaries, or any protracted wars which do not provide a quick payback. Or will US forces seize Iraq's oil wells and pipelines in 2009, killing anyone who comes within 10 miles? It's an option, if the public is angry enough to support it.

Will there be queues outside the banks at 9:00 am on Monday?

Oh!

Did I mention that Paulson is the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, the Bush gang's bank of choice, who (with the Saudis, link at my sig) helped push down the price of oil for the 2006 mid-terms? And now it's no coincidence that Goldman Sachs looks like being the last big investment bank standing on Wall Street.

Oi vey!

I vote that Good Celery should be made US President For Life.

It makes as much sense as anything else I've heard.

Josh Marshall concludes that the latest bailout is "crap":

"I can't seem to find any of the people who I respect thinking the bailout plan, as presented, is a good idea."

My email response:

Of course it is not a good idea for US taxpayers. But we might just be way beyond that.

The people who matter now are the international financiers (including Beijing) whose investments are still propping up the US economy.

This plan might be a bitter pill to swallow after 8 years of Bush, but maybe it's the price that the US public has to pay?

I know it's not fair to those who never supported Bush, but on the other hand you never did enough to get rid of him either, did you?

I mean, all the hand-wringing "progressives" never organised 1960's style marches around the nation, did they? In fact, they ridiculed people like Cindy Sheehan, who at least tried to get people angry enough to demand change.

The USA's real problems begin next week of those same international financiers reach the same conclusion as Josh Marshall.

Might be concluding by now that the USA is a war-mongering nation that drove itself into poverty through hubris and over-reach, and that it's demise is actually a good thing for the planet.

Of course, the USA's massive stockpile of weapons might still be a major issue if they fell into the wrong hands. I mean, we wouldn't want TERRA-ISTS to get their hands on them, would we?

PS: Sorry for the earlier typo:

The USA's real problems begin next week IF those international financiers reach the same conclusion as Josh Marshall.

In all the discussion about this crisis, one thing I have seen very little attention given to is the issue of corporate law.

Anyone who has seen the excellent movie "The Corporation" knows what I am talking about (link at my sig). It argues that society made a fundamental error when corporations were granted the same legal rights as individuals, and then we exacerbated this by giving more and more rights to corporations (under pressure from lobbyists etc).

Suppose that corporations were largely stripped of their legal rights, so that individual rights were once again paramount under law?

I know this would only heighten the panic right now - it would be like pulling the rug out from under these big banks and insurers - but surely it would also go a long way towards reassuring the public that the business sector is restrained, it can be trusted, it is being closely monitored, and we will never find ourselves in this situation again.