It has been my intent for the entire week to post the remaining two portions to a short story entitled “If You Could.” But I have neither had the time nor the mind to finish the story.

I had thought about making some comments on the presidential race and both VP candidates but then the stock market tanked.

I had thought about passing along my thoughts on the economy and the government bail out but couldn’t bear to consider it.

I am not certain why I refrained until now.

People are hurting. I know it sounds somewhat trite and many of you might argue that it hasn’t really started affecting people yet but I argue that it has. I know some people who are already hurting and hurting bad.

I know that I am normally prone to making light of almost every situation. I do this because laughter is truly the greatest medicine but the reality is that I don’t feel happy or funny or any of those emotions right now so it is hard for me to conjure any humorous anecdotes.

These times are serious and there is a certain ambivalence to the past weeks happenings that is in no small manor shocking to me.

Many people want to point and say “this is so and so’s fault” or “we need to do this!” but to be honest I don’t think anybody has a firm grasp on it.

Congress wants the US citizens to pay loads of cash to save our economy but that means there are no ramifications for the wealthy who fleece the American public. And wouldn’t the masses be better served with keeping their 2000 bucks a piece? Didn’t the government just give us 600 back?

As much as the greed at the top is to blame so is the Government and not just one party or another, but both. Their goal is to make sure that no one impinges upon a citizen’s rights to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Right now I feel that the later two have been completely overrun and the first and most important principal is caught in the cross hairs.

Is another great depression avoidable? I hope so but not with massive payments made to greed companies. The US from top to bottom needs to take a look at the moral-less compass that has steered our nation for the past 20 to 30 years or more and really ask if we are steering to close to land.

In a parting thought I would say that hope is not found in a candidate on either side. Barack Obama and John McCain will let each of us down at some point in time. I am not saying that it will be malicious but they are men and politicians and we cannot hope in any man to be infallible. Lets hope in something greater than a man.