"You embarrass me, you embarrass yourself"

Ever since I first saw the film "Crash" the above line has been one of my favorite movie quotes. I say it occasionally to friends when they do or say something that would be considered insulting to any number of people.

Right now, I am pretty embarrassed. I could probably be more embarrassed, but I am so angry that the anger is helps hide the disappointment and shame I feel.

In Washington D.C. over the past seven years, we have been lying, deceiving and manipulating our economy to a point that things are looking very bleak on Wall Street. We have praised investors when our markets seemed to be doing well and we praised the Real Estate brokers for working out loans for folks on hard times to allow them a chance at the American Dream.

We exalted our corporations for their hard work, and rewarded failure time and time again with exorbitant severance packages while investors were left holding seriously devalued stocks. We spent and spent and spent money; all the while the US Dollar has been taking a beating in the global markets. I joke with friends today after a long weekend that "I feel like a million British Pounds" or "I feel like a million Euro's" because a million bucks just isn't worth what it was five years ago.

So to the greedy, to the inane, to the truly worthless leaders of the past seven years I say these words again. You embarrass me. You embarrass yourselves.

I am hardly holding the President solely accountable. The Senate & Congress, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Fed Reserve Chairmen (Bernanke and Greenspan), the countless Boards of Directors across the US, Credit Card companies the world over; this rests on you.

Your awful foresight, your terrible choices, your lack of vision and worse the lies and deceit you passed on as truths and confidence have brought us to this place. You are responsible. I am holding you responsible. When I talk about what is going on America with our economy, I am going to blame each of you.
I blame the millions of Americans who dumped their money into the market without a second thought to where it was going. I blame people who went out and got upside down in a bad mortgage they couldn't pay when the rates went up and then cried like children to the government about how unfair life was that they would be losing their home; all the while the bank held the deed and their wallets.
I blame a weak government that was afraid to tell these people and these companies NO; fend for yourselves. Now, we have set a precedent that defies logic. Go out, make tons of money, and give away the profits to the senior leadership. When the ship starts going down and there are no savings just call Uncle Sam...he'll help you work things out.

Republicans and Democrats, you are not fit to lead this nation. You have proven so consistently over the past seven years. You embarrass me, you embarrass yourselves.