Lucky Number 7

It's pretty poignant that the Dow closed at 777 points under its starting point today. In the mecca of gambling, Las Vegas, landing on triple sevens is the equivalent to a near miracle while the triple digit loss in the financial world is a near disaster. But, ironically, both results are the outcome of a large, impractical gamble. As the greatest country in history scrambles to patch the damage and its citizens frantically paw for those who are at fault; the remains of our gamble hover in the air, unfinished business that may result in a longer stint in gambler's rehab than we were ready for. We loved our endless prosperity so much that we can't accept what it's come to; if not a complete end, a serious traffic jam that may result in more than a few angry drivers and passengers.

Like a kid who mis-budgets and, oops!, spends his rent money on beer and needs to make a whimpering call to his better-off parents to bail him out, the government was poised to step in and bail out our frivolous, mortgage traunching financiers out. The beer loving kid would be more closely watched by his parents and, ultimately, pay them back- perhaps with interest. The government, with the bailout, would have been able to more closely monitor and regulate the flippant financial mega-corps and, eventually be paid back by the reckless recipients of survival money. Americans, in their quest for someone to blame, got so caught up in the idea of helping the 'same people that got us into this mess', that they forgot that we are going to be cleaning up the mess one way or another because the financial company has no rich dad...they WERE the rich dad.

Today, as the news of the House rejection of the spending plan sunk in, a slow, creeping feeling of coolness invaded my chest and other panic-friendly zones. "What will this mean for us? How will we ever get out of this?" "Why is John McCain still blaming this entire fiasco on Barack Obama?!" I have faith in my country. I have faith in capitalism. But I lose faith with the partisan crap that gets in the way of both. I really hope that we can come out of this on the other side.