Wall Street Woes

Overnight our country witnessed the largest bank failure in U.S. history with the fall of Washington Mutual. Deposits are still secure, but WaMu's fallout only adds insecurity to the fate of our economy.

I've heard from many of you about the Secretart of the Treasury's request to rescue Wall Street. I appreciate your thoughts and want to keep hearing from you. Please send me an e-mail, or post on my blog.

I haven't seen a final bill to vote on, and until I do, I'm reserving judgement on any proposal. But I do have some concerns that I would like to see addressed. We must hold the bad actors on Wall Street accountable, there must be some assurance this plan is going to work and we need benchmarks to ensure the plan is working as intended. But above all, I believe the taxpayers--you and me--need to be protected. There must be specific safeguards in the legislation that ensure that any future earnings will be returned to you, the taxpayer.

How did we get here? The New York Times actually has a good article about it--published in 1999! Take a look, and let me know what you think.