Say, if everyone agreed that Paulson's trillion dollar bailout was based on a phony crisis, wouldn't that restore confidence?

the Bush administration always looks the other way, regardless of the number of warnings they've received. 9/11, Katrina and I'm sure there have been others. This is the thing - they use genuine catastrophes to advance their agenda. I have no idea how their agenda would be enhanced by preventing a total meltdown if one was in the making. Think of the amount of money they could soak up if that really happened.

What this looks like is the ramp up to the war, where they all spent hundreds of hours on tv with that hangdog expression on their face, telling us how dire the situation was when we all knew better.

If something is about to happen, they won't tell us. If they're telling something is about to happen, it means nothing is going to happen or they wouldn't be talking about it.

I just can't figure out what the goal is here. Stealing all the money isn't nearly baroque enough for this crowd. Creating a proposal that their non-wealthy base hates is a bizarre way to go out.

We can admit that we're killers ... but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes! Knowing that we're not going to kill today! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0

this time, but what's to stop them from going back to the drawing board and coming up with Plan B?

These guys need constant vigilance. I hope Congress and the SEC (whose job it is to protect investors, maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation) are paying attention!

We need a big ol' broom.