Every dime of these bailouts will have to be borrowed from China, Japan and the Middle East. In an effort to keep our corrupt financial system afloat, we’ve sold another piece of our country. The prestige and status of the US in the eyes of the world have suffered a catastrophic, irreversible decline in the last 9 months. “We The People” had absolutely no say in this decision.

I hate to quote Richard Nixon, but it’s apropos: When he was told that some corporate goliath was “too big to fail,” Nixon responded, “Tell it to get smaller.” I’m tired of hearing that every company that has a problem is too big to fail. The government shouldn’t let any company become too big to fail. Of course, they just encouraged Bank of America to buy Merrill Lynch - thereby making it way too big to fail.

Based on the actions taken to relieve banks of all their bad debt, American citizens may come to the conclusion that they don’t need to honor their own obligations. The moral hazard message from our leaders is that bad decisions do not have bad consequences.

In addition, consumer confidence and trust in government will fall because of the actions taken this week. Our leaders have lied to us. The massive redemptions from money markets weren’t panic; they were a rational response to being misled by bankers that money markets were safe and couldn’t lose money.

We sure could use a positive Black Swan. God help America.