Blame and Bailouts: Who Drove Our Economy into the Wall?

According to just about every poll around, the vast majority of Americans are against a taxpayer bailout plan for banks on the verge of collapse. “Why should we rescue people who made poor decisions and got themselves into trouble?” we ask. “We shouldn't be bailing them out, we should be punishing them for being greedy and stupid.”

Unfortunately, it's impossible to completely separate ourselves from those greedy bankers. When we talk about a financial bailout it's not just a bunch of bank executives. The banking system is our infrastructure for all our transactions. It effects our mortgages, our ability to get loans, our investments, even our personal bank accounts. What if those accounts just stopped working? That's what I think the “bailout” is all about. I don't think we would be so merciless if it were the nation's grocery stores that were all at risk of going bankrupt.

Still, there must be someone we can pin the blame on, right? So who is “someone”? Who was it that got so greedy that he or she caused a problem worthy of discussions of a $700 billion bailout? I'm no economist, but I don't think that question has a good answer.

I'm convinced that Wall Street traders and bankers are more like a flock of birds than an organized institution. They all seem to move together in a planned, orderly fashion. Then one bird catches a draft or swoops for a bug and they all change direction as if someone blew a whistle. It's a fascinating sight from the ground. But this time we all flew into a pane glass window.

That's right, the scary truth is that we are all part of that same flock. Who among us wasn't capable of writing a blog two years ago saying, “Wait a minute, are we sure this is the direction we want to be going? Should getting a loan be as easy as a Las Vegas divorce?” But who would have listened? We all had such implicit faith in the flock of birds acting in the best interest of the whole.

“But isn't it the government's job to keep things on the right track?” you ask. Have you ever tried to herd a flock of birds? Anyway, government involvement is probably as much to blame as anything. Think about Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

So when we call for someone's resignation and jail time for getting us in this mess, who decides who gets the blame? We don't know, we're just normal honest people, but surely someone in Washington or New York knows enough about what is going on to find the culprit, right?

I hope the decision whether to approve the bailout package goes deeper than letting a short-sighted executive fry. It may be that we don't need a $700 billion bailout – that the market will heal itself. The stock market threw a tantrum when the House didn't pass the first version of the financial bailout but we survived. I just hope the lawmakers will use courage in making decisions on this complex issue and do the right thing for the country.

Whatever happens in Washington, when we're all acting like we have a brain the size of a pea, we eventually have to admit that maybe there isn't one person at the front who saw that pane glass window coming.