2008; The year of bailouts while we were distracted by the election

2008 will no doubt be recorded as a historic year.  I feel so overwhelmed by all of the bailouts, the financial mess, the election and the fact that my 401k is down 53% and my traditional IRA funded with index stocks is still down 30%. 

I wish I had some hope for the upcoming election but I feel that regardless of whoever wins it will be more of the same.  I feel as if when I am trying to decide who to vote for I am mereley picking the lesser of two evils. 

I really enjoyed  Xin Lu’s (her profile) article at Wise Bread.  I espcecially loved the last paragraph,

“Finally, the scariest thing about these bailouts is not just the amount of money they will cost American taxpayers for generations to come, but that these bills were passed with haste and little concern for the voice of the people. In this video, Senator Diane Feinstein states that she received 91,000 phonecalls of which 85,000 were against the $700 billion bailout, but that she believes that these angry citizens do not understand the good the bailout will do. Is a democratic government really democratic if most of the elected officials do not serve the people that voted for them?”

you can read the full article here.