by Victoria Taylor

Created on: February 24, 2009

This is about pork or beans ... not from a housewife's or farmer's standpoint, but rather from the viewpoint of a concerned citizen watching the effects of years of financial mismanagement play out on the news each day.

We see its effects at the grocery store as we witness yet another desperate housewife sacrifice a needed box of cereal for the kids when food stamps fall short of the register total.

We witness its torture on the faces of fathers who lose first their jobs, then their families and finally their homes, living in trucks parked behind the Goodwill store.

And the pain sears our hearts like a poison dagger as we read about another family forced to leave their home because they can't pay their utility bill.

Yet the exorbitant waste continues. Just this morning the news was filled with reports about the irresponsible antics of a major banking institution. They had enthusiastically accepted hundreds of millions in bailout funds that they apparently didn't need. Would they refuse the bailout? Perhaps they would use the funds as intended. No! Instead, they would plan their traditional, HUGELY excessive Las Vegas Party to reward their top executives and performers.

Most alarmingly, several other institutions have already held such "bailout" parties! Reports of these "rewards" somehow flew under the radar until tens of millions of bailout dollars had already been spent. Was this what the government meant by "economic stimulus? Come on! Doesn't this somehow seem wrong to you? Have we learned nothing?

On its foundation, the bank bailout was sold to consumers as a way to keep the banking industry from collapsing and stimulating bank-to-bank and, ultimately, consumer lending. All this was designed to deflate the credit crisis, stabilize financial markets, and stimulate the housing industry. But the banks haven't use the money as it was intended, and it seems no one will step forward and right this ridiculously upside-down ship.

Unemployment rates are at an all-time high and the stock market has reached a 10-year low - and is still sinking. At least during the dust-bowl days of the Great Depression and in the post-WWII economy people could move across the country from impoverished areas to more prosperous regions. The government developed viable job programs. And even when strapped to the hilt, many citizens were generous, sharing what little they had to give hope to another.

Today, however, there is nowhere to go and the "haves" protect their possessions like a junkyard

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