Unfair Federal Reserve and Economy

What is the Federal Reserve? Basically it's a bank. What has gotten the United States into the economic mess that we are in? Basically the banks. I understand that we need to have banks to stabilize the economy because they offer a lot of avenues for commerce as well as flexibility, but when the heads of the banks themselves don't have control over what is happening in their own trenches, how does the population have a chance?

I feel the worst for the shareholders, pension holders, and employees of Bear Sterns, because they are the ones who just lost everything. Think about a person who has their pension heavily tied to the firm. They got wiped out over the past week. Most people don't follow their money that closely to know that they've got to get out before they are wiped out. The fund managers will not tell them because they'll lose the commission, so the individual is left behind.

I can't blame entirely the economic troubles on just the banks, the consumer has done it to itself, but the banks have let it go on for years. But what is the Fed going to do about it. Print more money to devalue the dollar even more, give more loans to others so they can give more loans to others who have already defaulted on their previous loans. Now that makes a lot of sense, doesn't it.

Some ownership has to be taken some where along the line, and it has to stop at many levels. We've just created a horrible cycle that we will need to fix, but the trouble now is which end to we starting fixing first. We can't fix the housing market without basically giving away money to people to buy or build new houses. The problem is, it's a loan that will most likely not be serviced. You can't fix the dollar, because it's not worth anything. You can't fix the banking industry because there are too many people with their hands in the cookie jar, and everything is too intertwined. You can't fix the government, because it won't listen to reason or make sharp decisions because of the political backlashing.

The people are the ones who will be the most hurt. Wasn't that what our country was built on? Now I don't know how to fix all the problems, but we've got to stop blaming people and start fixing things fast. We can't blame the President because he didn't crash the economy since being in office, it was the fools from decades ago, who started us off with a deficit, and then the trickle down theory took over. People are to blame, the poor ones to the ultra-rich. We all live above our means and we don't take responsibility for ourselves or our families.

Our economy and that of the world's economy will not be fixed overnight with bailouts from the Fed or interest rate cuts. Tax rebates in the hundreds of dollars won't fix things, because the people who will get the rebates will simply blow it on a TV or some other token and go on with life. We need to start over with self discipline and good management of ourselves. The adults need to learn ourselves and then teach our kids as soon as they can walk about the real life, and to take care of things.

Think about this. Would the government rush in a bail out your mom and pop business if it started to go belly up? Would you be able to lobby the government for tax credits or rebates because you felt like it? I wish the government would start to think about the country as a family owned business, where people care about the job that they do and who they help and not just about "What's in it for Me". I wish the government would spend more time with this country and stop worrying about all the other countries.

Enough is enough! We need to help ourselves and help quickly. The people and the government need to work together to fix things. Everyone needs to take a step back and a deep breath, and put our heads down and fix this great country.