This essay kind of hit a nerve. I've avoided commenting on the debt crisis because I assume its more political theater. For whom and why I cannot be sure but these people are too competent to let the United States default on it's debt, right? Right!? They'll pull a rabbit out of the hat at the last moment, won't they?

If they inflict avoidable injury upon the economy at this moment it could cause a structural shift in our society.

And when the banks that look after our money take it away, lose it and then, because of government guarantee, are not punished themselves, something much worse happens. It turns out – as the Left always claims – that a system purporting to advance the many has been perverted in order to enrich the few. The global banking system is an adventure playground for the participants, complete with spongy, health-and-safety approved flooring so that they bounce when they fall off. The role of the rest of us is simply to pay.

This column’s mantra about the credit crunch is that Everything Is Different Now. One thing that is different is that people in general have lost faith in the free-market, Western, democratic order. They have not yet, thank God, transferred their faith, as they did in the 1930s, to totalitarianism. They merely feel gloomy and suspicious. But they ask the simple question, “What's in it for me?”, and they do not hear a good answer.

Look at it from my perspective. I can't be the only person out there who is underwater in their home in spite of having purchased something reasonable that I can easily afford. I see everyone else getting bailed out left and right, but nothing is done for me *because* I have the ability to pay.

Do I have a right to be angry about that? How many people like me are there?