Tough day in the markets....

Sure, it would be nice to pin the entire financial meltdown on the Bush administration, and to muse about whether their more tragic legacy will be the damage that pre-emptive war in Iraq did to our national character, our international standing, or our national security; or the cataclysmic effects of cheap money, irrational spending and corporate largess on the economic health of our country today and for years to come. But even I have to admit that the forces that were unleashed by Greenspan and nurtured by the explosion of demand in China and India, that led to cheap credit, a borrowing mania, and a dangerous bubble in the housing sector are far greater than this little man could have orchestrated. In reality, they were little more than cheerleaders for the phenomena, and surrounded themselves with economists who spouted on that things were going swimmingly, critics be damned. Cheney, in particular, seems to be intimately involved with the White House's economic strategy, such as it is, and he has surrounded himself with the most embarrassing group of cheerleaders that could ever be assembled. Brian Wesbury? Larry Kudlow? Wayne Angell? These guys are getting laughed out of the room for their unabashed bullishness right now. Larry Kudlow was exposed as a coke snorting loser when we still worked on Wall Street, Roger Ailes picked him off of the floor and turned him into a sideshow freak at CNBC. No serious economist views him as anything other than a clown. Brian Wesbury has turned his cheerleading for this administration into a nightshow act on CNBC. Nobody listens to these guys. But they've got Cheney's ear.

There is one thing, though, that you can pin on this administration, and in many ways, it is worse than the meltdown in the markets, the writedowns at Merrill and Citi, and the bursting of the housing bubble. And that is because the government has a role as a safety net for those that need help, those in our society that are falling behind, and those that are in the greatest need. And these guys passed the Bankruptcy Bill in 2005 and they ripped that net to pieces. Don't for a minute think that they did it for any other reason than ideological spite, in order to align the bankruptcy laws with their bizarre woldview that tells them that the safety net is nothing more than a government handout, and that self made men like George W. Bush don't require handouts and neither should you.

Kevin Drum wrote a piece on the Bankruptcy Bill back in 05 that reminds us of it's nefarious nature today.

Bottom line: you don't need to understand all the intricacies of bankruptcy law to know what to think of this bill. Through their actions, its sponsors have made it abundantly plain that abuse of the system isn't their real aim: protection of major campaign contributors is. The poor get shafted, the very real crisis of medical bankruptcy is ignored, the rich are allowed loopholes that let them off the hook, and credit card companies can continue on their merry way knowing they won't have to pay the price for their own folly.

Welcome to America.

Look, you can't blame the systematic destruction of the financial system on Bush, but you can sure see his spiteful hand in the awful Bankruptcy Bill. That alone should haunt him through his days.