So because consumers & corporations are so irresponsible somehow now because these poor decisions are affecting "everyone (read: just a lot of jerks) we are resorting to corporate welfare?

Great... now I gotta pay for a bunch of OTHER PEOPLE'S mistakes...

Well, sleepy ted and fireman randy have already put our money in the ethanol bubble, what else is there? Wind farms? Bike boxes?

I cashed out my sad little 401K and put it all into the real big bubble -- "Flogos"...

http://www.flogos.net/Flogos%20H.swf

I am hoping they make them to look like streetcars and solar panels.

The next bubble? Commodities of course. Beware though, I don't see a taxpayer bailout when it bursts.

I have a feeling we'll all be "investing" more into government bubbles (at all levels) over the next decade.

The next bubble: the sustainability business. Just ask Boone Pickens. He wants to suck up all the taxpayer subsidies he can lay his hands on.

Speaking of Congress, there also was this headline:
http://www.236.com/news/2008/07/12/somebody_told_congress_how_muc_1_7659.php

There is salvation let KKR take over the reigns of Portland's city government. Strip, sell, and divide the profits..Good-bye ** Randy and Sam the scam and his crowd. KKR keeps no dead wood.

I honestly think I would rather be exploited by KKR than the current roster of hustlers.

At least with KKR they admit they are lining their own pockets with any cost savings. There's no pretense about trying to save the planet, or making Portland look more like Europe, or subsidizing the creative class.

Since Portland is the nations most progressive city, a leader, the next bubble will emanate from here. Our fearless leaders have a new bubble every year. In the mid 70's we had solar-true. Recently we've had "creative class", then bio-tech, nano-tech, sustainability, wind energy, design industry, alternative fuels, bike industry, and just very recently Gov. Ted is back to solar.

Bubbles just get recycled-how appropriate.

The all-time embubblement, of course, is Us, the Peeps, paying (with our labored life Time) the compound interest on the denominated face-value of dollar bills, collected by the private parties owning the printing presses which print the dollar bills.

It's like buying daylight by the pound, and then tipping the guy who sells it to you so you won't be in the dark about what's going on. Because if you only knew, the Fed Reserve would scare the daylights out of you.

If speaking of the location of (4) printing presses which print all the dollar bills, improve the knowledge in that speaking by first reading this: North Korea and the Supernote Enigma - Allegations that North Koreans are counterfeiting U.S. currency, by Gregory Elich, Korea Policy Institute, Global Research, May 7, 2008.

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But seriously, folks, 'once we built a railroad, we made it run, we made it run against Time, once we built the railroads and now it's done' ... we gotta do it, again.

Multiple Birds – One Silver BB: A synergistic set of solutions to multiple issues focused on Electrified Railroads.

Problems:
• Excessive Oil Consumption by the USA, much higher than OECD average
• Economic, Energy, and Environmental costs with related National Security issues that result from excessive oil consumption
• No Real Plan to Significantly Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions
• Lack of Non-Oil Transportation: there are no alternatives for essential transportation that don’t use oil
• Inadequate Railroad Capacity
• Speed and reliability of today’s Rail Freight cannot compete with Truck Freight for many cargoes
• Weak Electrical Grid with limited inter-regional transmission and stability problems
• Lack of markets and transmission capacity for remote Prime Wind Farm Sites
• Chronic Under-investment in long lived, beneficial infrastructure

The Silver BB
• Electrify 36,000 miles of mainline railroads
• Expand Railroad capacity and speed by ...

Read the article in the Aug Vanity Fair about Bear Stearns!!!
Very scary and realize that the rest of us have nothing to say or do about any of this mess. The SEC and the rest of the Feds are totally in the dark too. The inmates are running the asylum and there is NO adult supervision.
Put your money in a coffee can and bury it in the back yard...oh yeah...there are no coffee cans any more either.