As our economy collapses, it doesn't help to learn that Wall Street insiders have been running Ponzi schemes, bilking investors. Corruption has just been rampant in America during the Republican "deregulation" years. This comes from the Florida Chief Financial Officer's Consumer eViews newsletter:

A grand Ponzi scheme uncovered; Florida investors hurt

Recently an investment scam was uncovered in the investment capital of the world - Wall Street. A respected investment manager allegedly ran a giant Ponzi scheme with a possible loss of $50 billion. Unfortunately many investors put most or all of their funds in this one plan. One of the wisest rules of investing is to spread the risk.

Bernard Madoff ran a vast options game made popular by inviting investors into the fold. Anxious for an invitation to join, investors entrusted their money to Madoff. A part-time resident of Palm Beach, Madoff convinced many neighbors, friends and acquaintances to invest in his funds. This type of affinity fraud grows from the natural trust among friends and relatives.
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I kid you not. A bunch of right wing fanatics are holding a day of prayer for economic prosperity and decided to go down to Wall Street and worship the Golden Bull:

I mean, I may be a poor Jew, but to me this is basic idolatry here!

For the record, it isn't just me. My Catholic co-worker's response was, appropriately, "Oh...My..God! What are they DOING?"

The market just closed.

The market was actually -700+ points and under 8,000. It closed around 8477.48 and more or less -104.50 points.

You can see by the TV screenshot, it had gone up and it was close to 9000 pts.

This is insane.

I can't believe what's happening. The market lost more than 100 points in between news segments; going from -380+/- to -527.83 (the moment I took this post's pic).

It's up to -493.90 as I push "post".

My (imaginary) boyfriend has a few things to say about the craziness on Wall Street :

Steal from the poor and give to the rich: this is the policy that we have in recent days seen the U.S. Government unhesitatingly and irresponsibly sanction by bailing out the big gamblers and law-breakers with tax-payer money. At least now this short-sighted and destructive approach to governance is undeniably out in the open.

We saw this happen in the 1980s with the savings and loan scandal and bail-outs, and we are seeing now, as we saw then, people like John McCain, Phil Gramm and the usual assortment of corporate pirates get off scot-free and continue on their paths of self-advancement and cronyism. The mismanagement and plundering of our nation's wealth and the cavalier drive to burden future generations of its citizens with crushing debt have been hallmarks of U.S. government practice for quite some time, but never to the unprecedented degree that we have experienced during the eight years that the Bush Administration has plundered the treasury for the benefit of a tiny, very wealthy minority.

Hopefully voters will keep this in mind when deciding whether they wish to continue in the same vein with McCain, or give change a chance to happen with an Obama administration.

Perhaps, too, the mainstream media outlets, in response to the now undeniable financial and moral crises we face, will get back to allowing issues more pressing and significant than the personal and ethical foibles of Ms Palin to take precedence in their daily election "coverage".

I have my doubts about their willingness to do so, but there is always hope.

It's so HAWT when he pokes his nose in my b'ness and does that weird pseudo-blogging thing he does at this publishing company's site.

Le sigh.

He's given me the perfect reason to post about McCain's involvement in the Savings & Loan crisis of the 1980s. I give you John McCain's Keating Five Problem In 97 Seconds :
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