It's really easy to just say "forget the bailouts", let the banks and investment houses just go under and let them learn a little responsibility and financial restraint. That's the way a free market endorses discipline, isn't it? We've been putting up with all their entrepreneurial rhetoric for years, well let them have a taste of their precious free market and see how much they like it now.

And that's exactly the way I ought to feel. I work for local government, but my salary is provided by Federal grants, and I work for an agency that by law will be dispensing the Obama stimulus package for infrastructure. My job is recession proof, so I can afford to be cavalier about it. (Well, my position is recession proof, but everyone wants to replace me in it with themselves!). Not only that, I have nothing in the stock market, my savings are all in FDIC-insured accounts, and I am eligible for State and Social Security pensions in the event I do have to go on early retirement. Those will be the last safety nets to be consumed in the conflagration of total national bankruptcy. Even my medical is covered by the VA. (I don't need no stinking Socialized medicine, I've already got mine in the bag!) Not only that, I can honestly say I put myself in this position because I've been busy paying off my bills and paying my house off early and getting its maintenance all caught up. I am as ready as anyone can be for recession, or even Depression. And I deserve it, and the opportunity to say "I told you so".

But I am also an American, I love my country, and I care about all the people that are going to suffer if this really gets ugly. People who will suffer through no fault of their own, people who played the game by the rules and worked hard only to have it all taken from them by the financial elite and their lapdogs in government. People who are invested in stocks and 401Ks will be wiped out, if they haven't been already, people will lose their homes and their jobs and their health insurance. Company pensions will dry up if some of these funds go bankrupt, and the suffering will be unprecedented even amongst those who are already retired. Yeah, sure, I'll survive just fine, in fact, my savings and pensions will actually skyrocket in purchasing power in the event of severe deflation, and they will only be diminished with the inflation and higher taxes almost sure to come if Obama's stimulus package is fully implemented, even if it works as advertised.

But I support the stimulus, even though I have made a sober assessment of its risks, both to the nation as well as to me and my loved ones. I am not in this alone, I am part of a community, a nation, and it would be churlish and, yes, unpatriotic, for me to work for the policy that promises to be best for me, número uno, and to hell with everyone else. I would be diminished somehow if the nation were to fail, even if I survived unscathed. And I even feel compassion and extend a helping hand to those who I feel are responsible for this mess, because now is not the time for revenge. We are all in this together.

So those of you who would prefer to see those responsible for this disaster take the hosing they so richly deserve, even if it means they will drag everyone else down with them, be careful what you wish for while you're out teabagging your little hearts out. You just might get it.