Here’s a parallelaphor for you: the problems in our economy, i.e. the subprime mortgage backed securities debacle, the “credit crunch”, etc, are like food poisoning working it’s way through one’s digestive system. All our economic problems stem from a basic leaving behind of the basics: don’t spend more than you earn, and don’t bite off more than you can chew. When one starts gorging on junk food (read: subprime mortgage backed securities), some of which may have been fried in rancid oil (again, read: subprime mortgage backed securities), one can become frightfully ill. The result is nasty bouts of vomiting and diarrhea (read: dizzying stock market gyrations, skyrocketing commodities prices, banks collapsing [oops, did I say that? I wasn't supposed to say that, was I? Forget it, I didn't say that]). When the greedy bastards on Wall Street said, “here, eat this (subprime mortgage backed securities), it’s really good!” and challenged eachother to a drinking contest with the most foul rotgut you can possibly imagine (more subprime mortgage backed securities), many who should have known better succumbed to the debauchery, all in the name of getting as drunk (rich) as possible. Now, banks don’t even want to lend to eachother because they don’t trust eachother (…dude, you made me eat that stuff, next time I throw up it’s going to be on YOU). And guess who will ultimately have to clean up the mess? US. The American Taxpayer. The Fed (read: the American Taxpayer) had to step in and save one of the worst offenders (Bear Stearns) from literally dying. In Bear Stearns case, they had lost so much money that unless they got a massive infusion of cash, much like a patient dying from food poisoning needs IV rehydration to survive, they would have died. But we saved them, even after what they had done. And we will pay for it by having to clean up their vomit and diarrhea (read: pay higher taxes and higher prices for food, energy, etc. as our dollars decrease in value). The only reason we saved them is so we wouldn’t have to clean up a lot MORE vomit and diarrhea (read: domino effect in the financial industry leading to catastrophic consequences rivaling the Great Depression). It’s just unbelievable what some people get away with.