I've been following the posts and rants on this fine website for the last two weeks, and the one constant in all of the post is the willingness to repeat the same STUPID bumper sticker mentality that says "No Welfare for Wall Street!"

I've tried to dispassionately tell you all you're focusing on a stupid bumper sticker talking point, and you're missing the big issue. So I guess I need to go with an brutal force insult instead of informed debate:

You're all being a bunch of webpost DUMBASSES!

You guys can do all the cut 'n paste web stories you want, and you still don't get the jist of the fiscal meltdown we're facing. It has nothing to do with the money blown by investment firms on dumbass gambles. None of the money discussed in the bailout is going to those companies.

This is a CREDIT Crisis - and since the American Economy now runs almost exclusively on credit, any freeze in that process will melt down our economy and at least put us in a deep recession, if not a real depression.

The real issue is this - banks and other similar institutions now have so much bad debt that they no longer have the money to lend to each other, much less to other customers. (This is Federal law that they're required to have so much in assets at any one time.) In the case of banks, a large portion of those assets are mortgage-based, and thanks to the housing bubble, they aren't worth as much as they say....even though most of those mortgages are being paid.

When banks stop lending to each other to fuel the complex financial instruments that our economy uses now, they then stop lending to everyone else. (The interest rate they charge each other when they do has shot up to the point that no bank can afford the loan.)

It starts with the so-so-credit, most of which is the American Consumer and his staggering load of consumer debt. It keeps going and engulfs small and medium business which use credit, rather than cash to buy inventory, ship goods, make payroll, etc.

History shows that when this happens, a broad economic crisis can follow, for instance, the Great Depression and Japan's decade-long recession in the 1990s.

"If nothing is done, the potential for these markets to seize up in a big way is definitely there," said Frederic S. Mishkin, an economist at Columbia University who was a Federal Reserve governor until last month. "When you look at the history of these crises, when things spin out of control, the cost to fix it later goes up exponentially."

Which goes back to my original point - al the posts and dumbass commentary is centered around the mistaken idea that all of the money proposed for the bailout is going to the investment and brokerage firms that bought the subprime mortgages as corporate bonds from these banks in trouble.

THAT"S NOT WHAT THE CURRENT BAILOUT BILL IS ABOUT!!! It's a combination of buying some of the mortgage debt, and providing some cash to the banks so they can walk the line of keeping so much in assets AND lend money in the form of credit to keep the economy going.

Now, over 200 non-Wall Street economists say this in-between approach is a bad idea....they signed a petition started by a University of Chicago Professor that stated the current bailout bill sucked. Their statement is either give it all to the banks to get them back on track, or buy all the bad mortgage debt.

With either approach, the debate NEEDS to be how the American taxpayer can get a chunk of these banks, and make we get our money back once the crisis is resolved.

But none of the commentary posted on this website does this -- AND IT NEEDS TO STOP!!