The Fed announced its plan Sunday night. It’ll finance JPMorgan Chase’s fire sale purchase of Bear Stearns (at $2 a share, about $270 million and about one-tenth of what BS was trading for three days ago). It’s trying to save the monster from collapsing and, presumably, taking other mortgage-backed security firms with it. Stocks still fell Monday. The dollar is down. Oil is high.

And here the Fed bails out the bastards responsible for backing those asinine mortgages. The corporation that profited highly off it.

Could this really be happening? What the hell? I thought the market was supposed to pay for its errors? That’s the capitalist rhetoric, isn’t it?

Pundits say Bear Stearns is just too big. If the Fed let it go, it would be disaster across many financial markets, and eventually it would all fall right onto the burdened backs of homeowners already near default.

I’m sure that will happen. But I think that is inevitable — and  has been inevitable. If it’s going to come crumbling down, it’s going to come no matter what you do. I worry for all of my friends who are artists and writers. We’re always the first to get the cut. Take care. I sucked at sticking to a budget for a long time. But then I got really desperate…I’m making it work now.

He was crazy…but Howard Beale was onto something. We shouldn’t just yell it out a window. Our financial decisions should resound across the alleys of American commerce: "We’re not going to take it anymore!"

What changes should we make? I propose two: stop using credit cards, and use your tax refund check to pay off debt rather than to buy more shit. Let’s stop forking our money over to The Man in the form of high-interest loans that pollute our mind as well as our credit record.

Becky Ann Bosshart