CauseWithoutARebel's Journal: That sucking sound you hear from your wallet...

...is the Fed, President, and Congress acting in tandem to utterly and completely screw over every honest, hard-working American citizen.

The House, today, rejected proposed rules to limit speculative oil trading. Originally an attempt to curb the extraordinary increase in oil prices - and increase that is in no way tied to supply or demand issues - the proposal itself immediately realized a $20/bbl+ drop in light crude on the NYMEX as jittery speculators pulled out of the market. With the announcement today that the House was backing away from the new rules, light crude saw nearly a $5 gain in one day as people with no business bidding on oil dived back in. It's nice to know that critical things like oil and food can be manipulated by the wealthy using a few well-placed press releases and some good old-fashioned word-of-mouth fear-mongering.

So much for all the demand lunatics. If you ever wanted any evidence that the American Dream is entombed in a cement pillar in some ballpark somewhere, this is probably it.

On the same day, the Fed announced it was expanding loans through its "emergency liquidity program" to 84 days, from 28 days. Basically, they're admitting in a round-a-bout way that an awful lot of big banks are standing on the brink gazing fearfully into the gaping maw of oblivion, and that they'd rather devalue your money than let wealthy businessmen suffer the consequences of their own reckless decision-making.

It's so nice to know we have a free market in this country. I'd hate to live in a place like, I don't know, Venezuela, where the government is constantly mucking about in the markets.... I'd hate to live in a world where rich people could suffer for their irresponsibility the same way poor people can.

Finally, we have word that the housing bill is finally being made into law. Captain Flightsuit, today, signed the "Give Bank of America a big handout because Christopher Dodd is a corrupt pinhead" bill, effectively allowing banks to shift the burden of their poor lending practices onto you and your children, if not your grandchildren.

I wish government would at least be consistent in its negligent criminality. It wouldn't irk me so much if they did corrupt things to blatantly screw honest Americans if that didn't describe every single thing they do that isn't creating a pointless holiday or naming a post office.