...and we get up and go to work.

The average middle class American can be amazing if we take a moment to step back and take a look. A few times in the last decade I have noticed this, but never really given it much thought. Things happen in this country that would paralyze other countries workforce, yet we go on. In this mornings paper the headline was regarding the trillion dollar bailout that the government is hammering out to save our economy. One TRILLION dollars that is basically being shifted to the taxpayer because of bad investments by our financial industry. Yet we are not in the streets demanding to know how this happened. The American citizens are not demanding that our representatives in Washington get to the bottom of this. There is no public outcry for answers. I for one would like to know why. Why do we not ask more questions, why do we not demand to know who put the policies in place that allowed this to happen, how do we prevent such a catastrophic failure from happening in the future. No one was watching out for us while this house of cards was being built with sub-prime mortgages as the base. I did not even see in the paper any reporting about the precarious situation we were in, yet you know that those at the top had to be aware of the situation. Maybe they were too scared to bring it to our attention, maybe they were told to keep quiet, maybe their salary was so gigantic that they were unable to risk it by blowing the whistle. Who knows? Well, I do know something now. Deregulation of most industries does not work, I am not saying that we need to have a communist or socialist approach to industry. Yet with the bailout, whether the Republicans or Democrats want to admit it, we have just nationalized our banking and investment system. I am saying that we need strong regulation of industries that have the potential to harm the American people. The FDA will not allow drugs to go on the market before they are thoroughly tested and proven to be safe and effective, well that is the idea anyway. Yet financial products are introduced to the market each day that are in no way reviewed by an impartial third party. I think most of us know how we got in this situation, the people that were in charge of these financial giants were greedy, they had no concern for the people that they knew were going to lose huge sums of money. The only concern they had was how much money can I get away with before this all falls apart. There seem to be very few people left who actually care about anyone but themselves. The foxes are guarding the chicken house and we chickens are happily sitting on our nests, handing over the eggs and now that all the eggs are disappearing and the chicken house is in foreclosure no one is really flapping their wings and asking how this happened. It's all about those bad people that bought houses that were to expensive for them or people who run up to much credit card debt, shame on them, they have ruined it for the rest of us. I tend to disagree. When the mortgage company is qualifying you for a house that they know you cannot afford and the credit card companies are pre-qualifying you for outrageous credit lines I think it is their fault! They are the ones with the tools to know what you can and cannot afford, not every single person in the US has a good financial background. Most people rely on others to help them with complicated financial decisions. If the bank says "Yes you are qualified to buy this house, you can afford it, just sign on the dotted line" I think a lot of people trust the bank. Not everyone understands what an interest only adjustable loan is, an 80/20 loan, a one year adustible mortgage, why should they, they are not in the mortgage industry. When these loans were being written someone knew they were going to go bad, but what did they care, they got their commissions. So all this is going on and what do we do each day? We get up and go to work, we continue to invest our money in the 401k plan that the government has given tax preferential treatment to, we continue to increase production, work longer hours, whatever it takes to get by. All this while the big guys steal our money, bring our economy to its knees and demand that we not tax them because they are the ones fueling our economy. They are not fueling our economy, they are stealing from it. The average American is the one that fuels this economy, we are the ones that make the wheels turn, we are the ones that work for the corporations and keep the doors open, we are the ones that fund the multi-million dollar salaries of the CEOs, us NOT THEM. We have to realize that the people are the ones that hold the power in a democracy, that we can demand change, that we do not have to stand for this. That when our representatives no longer take care of us, the people that they represent, we need to get rid of them. I want a public outcry, I want the lobbyists out of congress, I want the government to answer to me, not some huge corporation. It is my right as a citizen of a democracy to question and demand change. If you are reading this and you are not happy, let your representative and senator know. Write them a letter and tell them you are going to do whatever is in your power to get them out of office unless they start responding to the concerns of the middle class. Become an activist. Politicians seem to want to hold up the intent of our founding fathers as the most important of all, yet they seem to forget that our founding fathers were revolutionaries, that went to war with the ruling powers, that they were activists, they printed subversive pamphlets, broke laws, overthrew the British and took the power for the people. They were not just a bunch of nice guys in powdered wigs having tea, they were subversives. So, you know, not to advocate treason or anything, but get up and go to work, work hard, make money, take care of your family and when you have some time raise a stink with the folks in charge, complain if something is happening you don't like, ask questions, do something, do anything. Hold those in power responsible, we gave them those jobs, we can take them away!