Games People Play - for big money in this case!

Well, I guess Wall Street showed those foolish folks in Congress who has the power, didn't they? And before that Congress showed those greedy bankers they don't have to rush to their rescue, didn't they? And before that? You can take this pretty far back before you find someone who wasn't being greedy or arrogant or blind. Make no mistake about it - this is a contest to see who really controls the economy in this country. And one thing is certain, neither of the contestants thinks it's you and me. We're just the PR pawns in their power struggle, the folks they both say they want to help while they pick our pockets to line their own, or to grow their power base, or to simply get re-elected.

There. I got that off my chest. Can't do anything about it except tell you how I feel. And if you feel the same way you could tell someone. And they could tell someone. Hey, maybe I can do something about it. But only if you and I team up to do it together. How? Well, here's my suggestion:

Tell your congressional representative to get off his/her duff and get this thing passed! It's a horrible bill except that it's far better than the alternative. Not in the long term, when everything will right itself as it always does; but in the short term the bankers will make our lives miserable if we don't save them so they can lend back to us the money they got from us through Uncle Sam.

But there's more we've got to do. After this thing gets signed, we've got to get our reps to do something really meaningful for a change. We've got to get them to enact real reform in the banking system. Not from the ideas that the banking industry lobbyists or congressional staffers will propose, but from the minds of our best economists and experts on financial systems. So at least one of these two groups has less opportunity to get rich at our expense by finding still another loophole in the banking and securities laws.

Then go to the polls and take care of the other contestant.

As always, I welcome your comments.

Did a whole industry forget to plan ahead?

First, this post is not about the banking industry, or the securities industry (regardless of the terrible market performance lately), or the mortgage banking industry, or even the much maligned morgage brokers.
It's about the airline industry.
An industry strategist was quoted recently as saying "many airline business models cease to work at $135-a-barrel oil prices." I guess they're not in much better shape at $145.
So what happened? We've known that oil prices were at risk since at least 2001 if not as far back as the 80's. And any industry that relies on fuel oil to fly a piece of metal machinery weighing upwards of a million pounds would want to have risk management issues resolved long before survival was at issue, wouldn't they? So why are they now trying to nit pick their customers with extra charges for checking baggage, food in flight, cutting schedules, etc.? Why is the Wall Street Journal writing about the possibility of their postponing the purchase of new planes - the fuel efficient ones, no less? Either they didn't plan ahead or they didn't like what their planning told them so they chose to ignore it. Oh, you say they saw it but were too poor to do anything about it? Rubbish! If you think your survival is at issue, you put up everything you have to prevent a bad outcome. Survival is the basic instinct, remember? If you don't do that, you either don't think it will happen or you think someone will bail you out if it gets too bad. And if you're big enough, you may get a bail out from the biggest free-of-charge insurance company in the country, the US government.
Airlines regularly go into bankruptcy, but none of the big ones ever stop flying, in spite of what seems from here like very poor strategic planning. What would happen if one of them actually put their planes on the ground and laid off all their pilots? Would Uncle come to the rescue?
I think we can survive with one or two fewer airlines, don't you?
I welcome your comments.