'We're From the Government And We're Here to Help' By M J. Panzner

Maybe it's my imagination, but it seems like a lot of people -- rich and poor, young and old, Republican and Democrat -- are expecting the Federal Reserve, the President, Congress, the Treasury Department, or sundry federal, state and local agencies to "rescue" America from the clutches of a growing financial crisis.

Yet few are asking the obvious question: based on past experience, is it really likely that their efforts will succeed? In fact, you don't have to be all that cynical to believe that rather than solving the problems we now face, our "leaders" -- elected or otherwise -- will, in fact, make matters worse.

That appears to be the view of Tom Engelhardt, who runs the Nation Institute's Tomdispatch.com (a regular source of interesting and insightful commentary) and who is the co-founder of the American Empire Project. In "The Little Administration That Couldn't" (which is included in a broader post, "Tomgram: The Fate of the Bear Market"), he aptly sums up, in my view, the prospects for a Washington-led turnaround.

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http://www.financialarmageddon.com/2008/03/were-from-the-g.html