T-R-O-U-B-L-E

Professor Henry Higgins from The Music Man can be heard singing his song across the nation with the line that goes ... "we've got trouble, we're got terrible, terrible trouble!"


Unfortunately that song doesn't go with only the movie. Unfortunately, that line goes with the state of the U.S. economy.


The dollar is down, the price of crude oil is up, the stock market is down, the price of gold is soaring, and President George W. Bush says "the whole world is watching." Those were his words as he began nudging Congress to pass his proposed $700-billion bank bailout package.


That bailout was announced  -- with every little detail -- over the weekend. That bailout -- again -- is $700-billion ... that's a seven followed by eight zeros ... $700,000,000. While the plan has been on the table for a couple of days, Americans are beginning to survey the proposal and are now beginning to panic. There are fears the bailout plan may be too expensive to fix the problem, will cause the deficit to increase, and drive up inflation.


Average Americans don't fully understand the problem. They just know they are having difficulty making ends meet. Filling the family car with gas is getting more difficult. Going to the market for groceries produces culture shock with big jumps in the prices of bread, milk, produce, and most everything else. It's getting difficult for Americans to pay their variable- rate mortgages, to pay their credit card bills, to see their doctors and buy their prescriptions.


Americans are looking for answers, and are frustrated with what they are hearing. They see a $7-billion bailout from their lame-duck Republican president, and a Democratic controlled Congress which wants compromises before passing the bailout bill. According to an Associated Press story posted on iwon.com, this is "the worst financial meltdown since the Great Depression." And it will get worse before it gets better, because the bailout may not be a quick fix.


The Associated Press reports economists at Merrill Lynch who say, after the Resolution Trust Corp. was established in 1989 to stop the savings and loan crisis, it took a year for the stock market to hit bottom, two years for the economy and three years for the housing market.



The big bailout plan is meant to help homeowners avoid foreclosure. The plan will allow the government to buy mortgage related assets from American companies and foreign companies with access to these assets. The bottom-line is for the government to buy these securities at a discount, hold them, then sell for a profit.


So far, the battle between the president and the Congress centers on two points ... 1) bankruptcy reform to help homeowners avoid foreclosure, and 2) compensation to executives when their companies get government bailouts.


While Wall Street watches, the president plans, the Congress wrangle for compromise, and two men fight to become the next President of the United States, everyday Americans are struggling. Everyday Americans are worried ... everyday Americans are waiting for answers as they ponder the November election and their futures ... everyday Americans are patiently waiting for their nation to get back on track ... and everyday Americans want their leaders to fix what is broken.


".. or so this news junkie thinks!"