The Bread Line Forms Behind Me

The Olympics may be long over, but it's good to see that records are still being set. And no, this post has nothing to do with the women's beach volleyball team--I just wanted an excuse to run the accompanying photo.

Rather, the record was set by Washington Mutual Bank. Yesterday it became the largest U.S. bank to ever fail. A subsequent attempt by the bank to set a new mark in the 100 meter dash fell short, however.

The FDIC was forced to step in because Washington Mutual had invested heavily in those sub-prime mortgages that are so darn popular these days. The company's shares had dropped by 90% over the last year, and it was teetering on the edge of insolvency.

Meanwhile, that massive $700 billion financial rescue bill that the White House had come up with last week is on the verge of collapse. A meeting yesterday between the Bush administration and Congress broke down into bickering. On one side were congressional Democrats, who were mostly supportive of the White House's proposal. But then that got torpedoed when a group of House Republicans decided to come up with their own idea for preventing the collapse of the entire world financial system.

Obviously the government can't solve the crisis, so here's an alternate proposal: Put the beach volleyball team in charge. At least the rest of us will have more fun while they hammer out a solution.

In the meantime, if things do end up going from bad to worse, I plan to be prepared. I've begun building a shantytown in my backyard.