Is it just me, or is the looming collapse of the United States financial system something that kind of grabs the attention? Headlines with phrases like "run on the bank" have a certain clarion ring to them.

I mean, more directly what, precisely, is going on? Is there absolutely nothing that the Bush administration can do but finally tear down the entire system itself out of sheer incompetence and mismanagement. Eight years of Republican misrule and we are facing not just some hard times but perhaps major economic catastrophe. My guess is that Bush's $600 tax rebate bribe is not going to do much when major banks are out giving blowjobs in the park trying to stay solvent. (and at $4 a gallon for gas that $600 isn't going to last too long anyway).

Sure, much of this is because of greed, criminality, and plain old incompetence and even stupidity in US banks and mortgage companies, but let's be cleareyed enough to hang a healthy amount of this colossal fuckup on the Bush administration.

This is starting to look doubleplus ungood, know what I'm sayin?