Can people in Hell smile?

Splendid. Now we know why the Democats really voted no to the bail-out. It didn't have enough pork in it. They passed the much larger version. A bill thick enough to stop a high-powered rifle round. No one who voted on it had any time to actually read it. So what have we got?

The Secretary of the Treasury is now the most powerful man in America. This bailout bill gives him the authority to "ensure" the economic well being of all Americans.

If tears could be shed in Heavan, George Washington, James Madison, and the rest of the Founding Fathers would be crying their eyes out. People, your Constitution just died.

And look at how the economy rebounded after the bailout. Yay. We're doing SO much better now. At least those AIG executives got their bonuses before Uncle Sam bailed them out. I was really losing sleep over those poor guys.

But the economy's still in the tank. 401Ks are evaporating. The baby boomers will have to all rely on Social Security now, which because of the declining birth-rate, can no longer support itself.

What do I mean by "declining birth rate?"

No, you don't "pay in" to Social Security and get your money back. You pay in, and the old folks living today get your money today. But there are fewer Generation Xers than there are Baby Boomers, so the "Pyramid Scheme" collapses with this generation.

In order for a Pyramid Scheme to work, there has to be more contributers on the bottom than receivers at the top. But while many of the Boomers came from huge families, those who had children (and didn't abort them) had fewer kids, like maybe one or two. Some bought in to the "Population Bomb" nonsense that we were going to run out of food if we didn't cut our birthrate. (But if you run out of food, you die, and the Population Bomb goes away. Stupid logic, really, even if it weren't based on nonsense).

Just wait. If retirement plans tank, Social Security becomes even more important than ever. And Social Security is scheduled to tank in the near future. All the politicians know it. But if you suggest reforming Social Security, you're accused of threatening to starve Mamaw and Papaw.

How's Mamaw and Papaw's 401K doin'? That's okay. They can live with you. Mamaw, Papaw, Great Uncle Cletus, Alcoholic Cousin Bob . . . oh yeah, you lost the house. That's how this mess all got started, wasn't it? Well then, we can all move in with Treasury Secretary Paulson He's our daddy now. And like a paper hanging son-of-a-gun, he can just print more money when he needs it.

[Important principle here: Printing more and more money DEVALUES money. What good is a billion dollars if a house suddenly costs a trillion dollars because of inflation?]

But thank goodness the government is taking over the banking system. They'll do a splendid job of managing our money. Just like they manage everything else.

Yeah, right.

If people in Hell can smile, Karl Marx must be grinning ear to ear.