Drunk again, the neighbor who ran off with your wife stumbles into your workplace, The Pottery Barn.

[lumberjack_jeff]

The owners tolerate him and his drunkenness because he's their best customer. He crashes into the ming vase display. Several of them fall from the shelf, who knows how many? Billions worth?

What do you do?
a) follow the lead of the drunk, by throwing pillows around the room, on the off chance that the vases may land on them. (very unlikely to succeed)
b) launch yourself across the room in a heroic attempt to intercept the vases before they land. (somewhat more likely, because you're highly trained in cleaning up after your neighbor's visits to the store and preventing catastrophe which he brings)
c) do nothing.

In the do-nothing approach, your ex-wife leaves the drunk and the pottery barn owners 86 him from the establishment. Granted, the company suffers for their trust in "their best customer", but you'll find other work.

You take comfort in the fact that it was bound to happen eventually (it's almost like he meant it to happen) and that, because it wasn't your fault and no reasonable person can suggest it was, your work search won't be all that tough.

More to the point, the people who enabled this to happen aren't insulated from the consequences of their actions by your thankless heroics.

[ashling]

1. Huh?

:shrug:

[Romulox]

2. Your analogy is strained. The real question: will more booze "cure" the alcoholic?

Do you "rescue" a junkie by providing him with $700 billion more smack? :eyes:

[lumberjack_jeff]

3. The drunk should not be rescued.

The owners of the pottery barn should not be rescued.

The only innocents here are those who are dependent on the pottery barn for their livelihoods.

My feeling is that a $700b bailout of the financial industry is both unlikely to succeed and not a permanent fix because the people who brought it on and the deregulation religion that they preach have not yet been adequately discredited.

The more democrats intervene to save republicans and their capitalist constituents from themselves, the more we accept the blame on which Republicans should have a monopoly.

If all politicians are the same, when all is said and done, no one is left standing to reconstruct a functional economy.

Rescue the public from the republican mismanagement. Don't rescue republicans from themselves.

Unfortunately, you can't rescue the public until they understand what they are being rescued from.