boakes.org

In March, the US federal reserve made a 29 billion dollar investment bailing out the collapsing Bear-Stearns bank. Last month the behemoth mortgage lenders Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac were underwritten to the tune of 200 billion dollars. Yesterday the seven hundred billion dollar bail-out bill on federal intervention in financial markets was rejected by the House of Representatives.

President Bush now warns his citizens that they are “in an urgent situation and the consequences will grow worse each day if we do not act.” Bearing in mind the scale of the problem, and the urgency which President Bush describes, I started to wonder if there is a point of no return where he would be advised to declare a state of emergency. When martial law would enforce a period of reflection and allow the economy to steady itself (or allow any shape of rescue bill might to be pushed through, or around the House).

President Bush has previously joked that things would be a lot easier if the USA was a dictatorship, providing he was the dictator. So, just how bad would it have to get, for democracy to be suspended at the core of the capitalist free world?

(Lets not find out, eh?)