What is on everyone’s mind in corporate America? Money. Same thing that should be on your mind. If you have significant savings then you might be in good shape for the time being. Or your might not. Depends on whether the banking system collapses completely. While the chances are low, I think we may well see major riots in our biggest cities in the next five years. That depends on how well Congress and their myriad myrmidons can prop up our faith in their system of theft, graft and faith based electrons.

Today I had to go to my boss and ask him for money to buy computer hardware because our storage arrays are full. The idea was better recieved than I thought it would be considering that the credit markets have dried up commercial construction projects short-term. A LOT of chains have put all their new building projects on hold.

The world keeps spinning. Those of us based in the Southeast still have a hard time filling up the gas tank, compared to a few weeks ago we have to do a lot more searching to find gas. This adds to the sense of foreboding a lot of people have. I’m only surprised it took this long to reach a moment in time when we had to say, as a nation, what the heck is really going on here? After all we’ve been trained for at least three generations now to a sense of entitlement, instant gratification and complete lack of any real hardships in life. Reality doesn’t always work that way, at least for most people.

The big question is: where are we going from this point? At least a few people are hearing from Ron Paul again.

Roberts: OK, OK. So we recognize all of the things that got us here. But, right now, today, what would you do, if not this bill?

Paul: You have to liquidate those mistakes. Those mistakes were made due to monetary policy. So you have to allow the market to adjust prices downward. And that’s what we’re not allowing to do.

If there are too many houses and the prices are too high, the sooner we get the prices down to the market level, as soon as we quit trying to encourage more housing — this is what we’re doing. They’re trying to stimulate houses and keep prices high. It’s exactly opposite of what we should do.

So, we should get out of the way and not buy up bad debt. There’s illiquid assets, but most of those are probably worthless. They’re mostly derivatives. And we’re sticking those with the taxpayer. So we have to recognize that the liquidation of debt is crucial. And if we did that, we would have tough times, there’s no doubt about it, for a year. But if we keep propping a system up that’s not viable, we’re going to have a problem for decades, just like we did in the Depression. That’s what we’re on the verge of doing.

Congress will most likely do what they do best - put off dealing with these issues as long as possible. They’ll vote an “aid” package in. The dollar will be further devalued. You will be immediately a little more of an economic slave than you were yesterday, assuming you plan to keep adding to the system we live under. The system will be that much closer to collapsing under its own weight. Beans and bullets will be excellent investment vehicles.

There will be less grossly obese people waddling around.

I’m just about through with the people in Washington, D.C. and all those who share their mentality.

Frankly, my dear, I no longer give a damn. My short term goals are to keep putting food on the table and gas in the tank so I can get to and from work. My long term goals are to watch the system collapse under its own sheer hubris and criminal arrogance.

The more Congress examines the Bush administration’s bailout plan, the hazier its outcome gets. At a Senate Banking Committee hearing Tuesday, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle complained of being rushed to pass legislation or else risk financial meltdown.

“The secretary and the administration need to know that what they have sent to us is not acceptable,” says Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn. The committee’s top Republican, Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, says he’s concerned about its cost and whether it will even work.

In fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy.

“It’s not based on any particular data point,” a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. “We just wanted to choose a really large number.”

Wow. If it wants to see a bailout bill passed soon, the administration’s going to have to come up with some hard answers to hard questions. Public support for it already seems to be waning. According to a Rasmussen Reports poll released Tuesday, 44% of those surveyed oppose the administration’s plan, up from 37% Monday.

If only this was a joke. Sadly, it isn’t. The money is just made up at the whim of Congress. It’s just binary data that holds value based on the faith of Americans. Americans are losing faith in the system, and the system is responding by losing value. The end result of this process should be obvious - a breakdown. Possibly a minor breakdown. Possibly a catastrophic train wreck. That remains to be seen.

All I am certain of is that more legislation is not the answer. More rules won’t help. More oversight is not a long term solution to the problem of the creation of 700 billion faith based electrons.

Government created the financial market climate responsible for the risky loans that should never have been given. Yet government has now appointed itself the savior that will rescue us from bad decisions made by government. How this guy can be so far off base is amazing.

Self-reliance. Individual responsibility. A faith in free markets and a belief that people should have the opportunity to fail or succeed on the basis of their hard work and ingenuity. These are qualities that have been as central to the national identity as they have been to the American economic model.

Which is why it is so extraordinary that the government now finds itself hip-deep in the direct management of the financial system, rescuing four of the country’s biggest financial institutions — Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and now Lehman Brothers — from the harsh discipline of markets and the consequences of their own misjudgments.

This unprecedented intrusion of government is coming in the waning days of the administration of a Republican president who made privatization, deregulation and a faith in free markets the centerpiece of his economic policies and of his political agenda.

In case you don’t know it Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were created by the federal government.

In recent months, the nation’s two largest mortgage finance lenders have come under increasing scrutiny at the hands of Congress, the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The Federal National Mortgage Association, nicknamed Fannie Mae, and the Federal Home Mortgage Corporation, nicknamed Freddie Mac, have operated since 1968 as government sponsored enterprises (GSEs). This means that, although the two companies are privately owned and operated by shareholders, they are protected financially by the support of the Federal Government. These government protections include access to a line of credit through the U.S. Treasury, exemption from state and local income taxes and exemption from SEC oversight. A recent accounting scandal at Freddie Mac that resulted in the replacement of three of the company’s top executives has led to mounting concerns over the privileged status these GSEs enjoy in the marketplace.

Let’s say your daughter got raped. Would you hire the rapist to provide your daughter therapy? That’s as silly as bringing in the federal government to fix the problems it created by allowing Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to make irresponsible loans under the protection of law.

Fannie Mae was created in 1938 as part of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal. The collapse of the national housing market in the wake of the Great Depression discouraged private lenders from investing in home loans. Fannie Mae was established in order to provide local banks with federal money to finance home mortgages in an attempt to raise levels of home ownership and the availability of affordable housing.

Initially, Fannie Mae operated like a national savings and loan, allowing local banks to charge low interest rates on mortgages for the benefit of the home buyer. This lead to the development of what is now known as the secondary mortgage market. Within the secondary mortgage market, companies such as Fannie Mae are able to borrow money from foreign investors at low interest rates because of the financial support that they receive from the U.S. Government. It is this ability to borrow at low rates that allows Fannie Mae to provide fixed interest rate mortgages with low down payments to home buyers. Fannie Mae makes a profit from the difference between the interest rates homeowners pay and foreign lenders charge.

Let me be bold. If this cycle of hiring the problem creator to manage the problem continues, foreign armies will one day arrive here to collect the debts we are unable to repay.

Meanwhile a retard named Steven Pearlstein prattles on about free markets with nary a glimmer of understanding.

If these actions had been taken in Moscow, Paris, Beijing or even Brasilia, they would have seemed merely confirmation of long-standing socialist instincts and traditions. But in Washington, they are revolutionary. As with the Great Depression, it has taken a full-blown financial crisis to shake the faith that free markets will always deliver better outcomes than politicians and bureaucrats.

What free market you moron? Franklin Delano Roosevelt set the stage for the socialist controlled market in 1938! The current conditions are the direct result of government interference in free markets. Your advocating more government interference is akin fighting a fire by pouring fuel on it. What the hell is wrong with you people?

It should come as no surprise that federal employees have been accused of being in bed, literally, with oil industry representatives. The nature of power almost demands such relationships exist.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — U.S. government employees received improper gifts from energy industry representatives, and engaged with them in illegal drug use and inappropriate sexual relations, according to a report issued Wednesday.

A report says government officials accepted gifts from oil and gas company employees.

The report was issued by the Interior Department’s inspector general after a $5.3 million investigation “uncovered recreational marijuana and cocaine use” by “a handful” of Interior Department staff, and found two federal employees “engaged in brief sexual relationships with representatives from companies doing business” with the department.

Two Interior Department employees “received combined gifts and gratuities on at least 135 occasions from four major oil and gas companies with whom they were doing business — a textbook example of improperly receiving gifts from prohibited sources,” Inspector General Earl Devaney says in a letter to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne accompanying the report.

Randall Luthi, head of the Minerals Management Service at the Interior Department, said the public had not suffered financial losses as a result of the employees’ behavior.

Some of the government employees tried to hide their close association with the industry they were supposed to be regulating, the report says.

The real problem here is not that human nature is what it is. Why does no one ever ask the question that is really important: why do we accept that government can police itself? It does a terrible job. These employees will never be appropriately punished because they are part of a monopoly that naturally protects itself. Its name is the United States Federal Government.

“The Bush administration put an ‘America for Sale’ sign on the White House lawn from day one and has been courting Big Oil ever since,” Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-New York and chairwoman of the House Rules Committee, said in a written statement. “Democrats have been saying it for some time, but this proves it. This administration is literally in bed with Big Oil. Little did we know they were such a cheap date.”

Representative Louise Slaughter is a part of the problem. She cunningly points the finger at a man we all love to hate. The truth of the matter is that Democrats are just as cheap to date as Republicans. To say that either of our two parties isn’t filled with whores would be disingenuous. Many Americans, though, remain happily oblivious to the fact that the two party system is a shell game designed for just one purpose - keeping the power in government where it can be abused with impunity.

As a legally naturalized citizen of these United States, and a trained disciple of the cult of big government, my first thought upon reading an article stating that the world would prefer a President Obama was why the hell should I care what choice the rest of the world would make if they got to cast a ballot.

The answer is simple. The U.S. government makes a habit of forcing itself and its policies on the world. Democrats have done it. Republicans certainly do it. The world is quite aware of it. Whether you were born in Kosovo, Mogadishu or Baghdad, you might feel you have a stake in who becomes the next U.S. president. After all, the decision may determine whether or not your family gets bombed in the middle of the night. Americans don’t have to worry about that (yet).

The longer I study U.S. history the more clear it becomes that the United States government has acted as an agression machine far longer than I have been alive. As a part of that factory of forced policy (a national guardsman) I would much prefer that the federal behemoth shrink to the point where I don’t have to worry about which war I’ll be fighting next. Make no mistake, some wars are probably unavoidable. I am not a fan of rushing headlong into as many as possible. That’s something only a complete idiot would embrace.

Yet there seems to be no shortage of complete idiots. We also seem to have an overabdundance of men and women willing to use force to make others comply with ideas that start off well intentioned and almost always turn into unmitigated and poorly managed disasters.

If the world prefers Obama, who am I to tell them they have no say? It seems to me that they do.