Bail Me Out, Too, George


Hey, Barney, can you spare a dime?

This is a very short little comment, since, as you know, we serfs don't have time for contemplation and reflection.  I have an unfinished post about something more intellectual -- but well, it will have to wait.   I have to earn some money, which means blogging for peanuts, writing lesson plans with limited readings but lots of graphics, and sending out job applications, hoping they don't bear the tainted stink of failure that I truly believe is starting to adhere to me, just like the Steeler jerseys are adhering to the sweaty Monday Night Football fans I run into in CVS, the parking lot of the school, the neighborhood, and of course, the gas station, on this unusually warm September day.  

But I'm having trouble reading the newspaper, listening to the radio, or thinking about my nonexistent bank account and the debts that we indentured types have stupidly incurred upon ourselves (really, wouldn't it be easier if we could blame the Great Chain of Being rather than free will?).   At a soccer game yesterday I listened to a well meaning woman go on and on about how debt is our own fault, that we are as much to blame as any big investment banks for the current economy, because we all want bigger homes and nicer clothes and credit cards satisfy that even when we don't have the cash to back it up.  I can't disagree with her, although I would bear the guilt more comfortably if, in fact, we had a big house and beautiful things and nice clothes, but we still live like tag sale happy grad students with student loans to be paid in perpetuity and a rusty silver Subaru that really should be quietly retired.  I resist feeling as though we are profoundly stupid (we probably are), but after I listen to her for half an hour, I can't help but believe I am a bad person for having paid for graduate school on loans, buying my children middle class lifestyles (sports and music lessons, I suppose), and, oh yeah, not having a job anymore.     

What I am sure, though, is that the folks at Goldman Sachs and Wachovia and all the other banks and investment banks that are about to drag us all down the economic poop drain, do not feel like they are bad people.  The banks themselves show no guilt and no remorse, continually talking about themselves as if they are omniscent ("Wall Street believes.." is a phrase I keep hearing on NPR...)  Not that guilt is a particularly useful state of being, but then again... as we head into Yom Kippur, I keep thinking it's not really us serfs that need to be deeply concerned about atonement.   

Wait! Maybe I'm focusing on the wrong kind of feelings... or the wrong wronged party?
Just as I'm writing this, Barney Frank, crusty Massachusetts representative and chair of the House Finance Committee, just made fun of the Republicans who are crying that they lost votes for the bailout bill because of Nancy Pelosi's speech.  Frank said he was appalled that the Republicans would put hurt feelings ahead of the good of the country.   Listen, if we want to hold some people up to the emotional fire, please do call the folks who got us into this mess in the first place.  I'm happy to attest to my share of the blame if they do, too...

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