The recent $700 billion bailout of lending institutions has me puzzled. I have many more questions than answers. For example....

If the commercials were true, and no one could do “what Countrywide can,” why did the mortgage company keep doing it? Why did all the subprime lenders continue to write bad loans despite obvious signs those who were borrowing were over their heads? Was it greed, or was it just bad business sense?

Why does so much depend upon a bunch of flaky, stressed, often unstable stock market investors and their hedge fund managers? Shouldn’t one of our key economic indicators look more like it is based on Main Street USA and less on the Strip in Las Vegas? Should there be tighter controls over how much of a swing the market should be allowed to experience in a single day?

Don’t we have about enough new houses and cars to fill our needs for the moment? Why do we look to housing starts and car sales to determine economic growth? Besides immigrants, illegal and otherwise, who is going to snap up all the houses and cars on the market?

Is there actually a tipping point where the cost of purchases keeps rising and income keeps rising and eventually there is so much money floating around that a correction needs to be made? Is that called a “depression”? Are we headed for one now?

Why is the government’s solution to economic problems always centered on consumer spending? Isn’t spending beyond our means going to exacerbate the problem? Can we really be expected buy our way out of a recession?

Wasn’t using too much of its money on a war it couldn’t win a major contributing factor in the dismantling and self-destruction of the Soviet Union? Does anybody in Washington remember? Wasn’t it a war with Afghani­stan that did the USSR in?

How much do we owe China when the current national debt is just more than $10 trillion (according to treasurydirect.gov), and we are constantly borrowing from our Chinese friends? Wasn’t it only eight years ago (September 2000, to be exact) that our national debt was actually a $230 billion surplus? What happened, and how should that affect our voting in November?

How long will Kansas, Marion County and Hillsboro be somewhat isolated from the economic problems our country is facing? Will we be OK as long as grain prices are high, and gas prices hover around the $3 mark, and we continue to invest in the local economy?

Can any of our national politicians take even a day or two from their partisan squabbling to devote some of their attention to the direction our country is heading in this crisis?

Don’t we already know the answer to that question?

Write Comment