Australian news media have focused on the U.S. financial meltdown and resulting struggle to pass a bailout plan as it relates to the Aussie economy. (TV news programs especially love padding broadcasts with close-ups of nervous Aussie investors staring up at the ASX share price board.) After yesterday's stunning House defeat, the bulk of Aussie financial pundits see US political wrangling as the main hurdle to solving the global financial crisis.
But. Still.
Only in major US papers (not liberal blogs) have I seen bailout package opponents referred to as Madmen, Lunatics, Nihilists and so on.
I can't claim an ounce of financial acumen but I know economic revenge when it's on such blatant display. Middle America equates Wall Street not only with ill-gotten wealth and and the fruits of greed, but a lifestyle they deplore and (especially now) feel superior to. They'd sooner throw bags of concrete to drowning financiers than a $700 billion bailout. What they don't know -- and what they're election-year-beholden representatives won't tell them -- is that this sinking ship will take them and most of the world's economic markets down as well.
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