Socialism for capitalists

The calcified arteries of Wall Street are clogged with bad debt. Our government plans a $700-billion emergency bypass straight through our pocketbooks. Socialism for capitalists. We're told the sacrifice is needed to ensure our own healthy circulation.

Most of us, however, would prefer to let the patient die. He's a greedy, duplicitous, scoundrel. He refused every ounce of preventative medicine and now unashamedly mainlines taxpayer dollars.

Why keep him alive? Why perform miracle surgery on this pathetic form? Why can't we "decouple" ourselves from the excesses of Wall Street?

Because we're linked like Siamese twins. Our entire economy rides on a shock absorber of Wall Street credit. We've been able to ignore the bumps and now we're in the ditch.

For too long we've let Wall Street do the navigating for us. It told us we were in charge and then made all of the decisions. It shifted risk onto us and then collected most of the rewards. It made us believe that asking for more was a sign of weakness, an affront to the American ideal of self-reliance. It told us to cherish our small town ways and then went out and got involved with the world. It taught us that math no longer mattered if you had the right credit card and mortgage rates.

So, we're going to get jacked this time. But it's time to end the Great Bamboozle... time to stop being the rubes and start keep the other half in line.