WE LIVE IN BUSH'S ECONOMY NOW

So, I was running by the newsstand the other morning and came across a headline in the LA Times titled IndyMac Bank seized by federal regulators. It starts off this way ...

The federal government took control of Pasadena-based IndyMac Bank on Friday in what regulators called the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history.

It then goes on to say ...

The takeover of IndyMac came amid rampant speculation that the federal government would also have to take over lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which together stand behind almost half of the nation's mortgage debt.

Welcome to the Republican economy, ladies and gentlemen! If you're a large corporation, feel free to do whatever you want to make a profit. And -- should you fail -- no worries: the government's got your back. If however, you're just an average American, don't complain to us about your economic struggles. Because -- as McCain's chief economic advisor, Phil Gramm, said -- you're all just a "bunch of whiners." I think these recent financial events were summed up nicely by Newsweek's Daniel Gross ...

Should Washington intervene and explicitly do what has been implicitly assumed all along--backing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's debt--critics on the left will correctly claim that it's another example of privatizing profit and socializing risk.

Yep, that is in fact exactly what I'm doing right now. And this whole banking fiasco also got me thinking about the airline industry. Here's a quote from a recent article on the subject ...

US Airways Group Inc. is among a consortium of 12 U.S. air carriers asking the U.S. Congress to address the actions of oil speculators, whom they blame for escalating fuel prices ... The airlines’ chief executives say regulatory oversight of market speculation has declined in recent years, and the industry sees a need for reform to ensure speculators do not overheat the market to a point that hurts the consumer.

Is it just me, or do you interpret this as the airline industry basically begging the government to regulate more? All of a sudden DemocratIC principles seem a little more attractive, huh?