In case you’ve had your head in a bucket for the last month or so and haven’t noticed what’s going on in the world of US government economic policy:

Major financial institutions have been collapsing left and right. Bank of America bought Merrill Lynch for pennies on the dollar, thanks to a subsidy provided by Uncle Sam. Before that, Bear Stearns got similar treatment, being bought for pennies on the dollar by JP Morgan Chase. AIG, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac all got bailed out by the Federal Reserve — money was pumped into them so they’d stay afloat, thus insulating them against the consequences of their own incredibly stupid actions.

All this crap is the result of tons of bad, awful investments, offering terrible loans to abysmal-risk borrowers. Much of the reason for that is Clinton-era policy that encouraged loaning money so people who can’t afford to buy homes and expand marginal businesses would then buy homes and expand their marginal businesses, specifically to help urban development. While the Bush administration has done nothing to correct the matter, as far as I’m aware, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s statements to the effect that George W. Bush should apologize to the American people for “causing” the current financial crisis are somewhat off the mark.

. . . to say nothing of the forty years or so of piss-poor economic policy under a long line of crappy Presidents before Clinton came on the scene, all of which set the stage for Clinton’s gaffe.

Now, Ben Bernanke (chairman of the Federal Reserve board) and Henry Paulson (Treasury Secretary and IMF board member) are trying to harangue Congress into approving a $700 billion bailout for more failing organizations considered “too big to fail” by supposed fiscal wizards like them. Let’s have another, more literal look at that number:

$700,000,000,000.00

It’s a big number.

The US government could save about a hundred billion dollars and still give every motherfucker in the United States $2,000.

The US government could save about a hundred billion dollars and still give every motherfucker in the world $100.

Every. Mother. Fucker. In. The. World.

One hundred dollars.

Shit. Do you have any idea how long $100 can feed a kid in Darfur? Seriously, that is an insane amount of money for what amounts to a one-shot corporate subsidy. Anyone seriously considering supporting this deal must not have had to buy his or her own milk for at least twenty years. They all probably have maids pour their cereal for them so they don’t even have to look at the milk jug, or for that matter the refrigerator.

No, scratch that. I bet cereal’s too gauche for them. They must have Eggs Benedict every morning, cooked over their $100-bill-fired stove by diligent and internationally respected four-star chefs. Seriously, folks — $700 billion. I guess maybe it takes at least a trillion to start looking like real money to a Congresscritter these days.

Read this advice for communicating with Congress.

It’s okay, I’ll wait.

Done? Okay, good. Now, find a contact number for your Representative and give him or her a call. Tell him or her how much you hate this idea, and how he or she has lost your vote if he or she votes for this piece of shit idea.

Seven hundred billion dollars. Criminy.

Of course, when you call, you should be polite and essentially formal about it. Try something akin to:

Hello, my name is [your name here] and I am a constituent of [representative’s name here]. I am calling today to urge [him/her] to oppose the seven hundred billion dollar bailout. My vote this November may depend on how [he/she] votes on this issue. Thank you.

Make sure you read the page about how to communicate with your Congresscritters. Don’t use the tone I use for most of this SOB entry. You want to be considered an important constituent, and not a “crank” (i.e., someone smarter than anyone in Congress) who’d never vote for your incumbent Congresscritters in the first place.