We went to Washington, DC, last Friday and just got home a short time ago. Maybe we should have done more there to persuade Congress to pass the rescue plan. Paul Krugman posted a note to his blog a short time ago, OK, we are a banana republic. The markets went down 777 points, the largest drop since October, 1987.

l live on retirement funds, some of which are in equities. No more travel for us for some time, I am sure. If you are working, don't feel you are better off. If there is a real credit crunch, which many predict, you may well be in for an extended hard time as well. For example, my old friends in higher education may see a big drop in enrollment when parents can no longer afford tuition, as happened to my mother in 1929.

I was born in 1939 and my parents lived through the depression. Sometimes the choice was food or take a bus. They never forgot that experience. I guess we need to relearn it every 80 years.

On the way home, we heard that now Wachovia, the 4th or 5th largest bank in the US, is in trouble and it appears that Citigroup has now bought the core business. On 18 Sept, Wachovia was trying to buy Morgan Stanley. Citigroup is the largest US bank. Hope we don't read about them going belly up in the next eleven days.

Asset deflation is the big worry for sane economists. I leave out those remaining supply side economists whose ideas seem to need to be debunked every 20 years as the market tanks. It may well be underway and that spells serious trouble.

I don't care whether it was Republicans, as many now indicate, or liberal Democrats that messed up here, I want them fired. No more idiots at the helm.

Bush has so messed up our country that he should be held accountable as well. How about docking his retirement pay the $7 trillion that he and his henchmen will likely run up in debt over their eight years in office. I want to start a pool on how many people he will pardon the last week as president? Any takers?

I am going to go have a drink while I can still afford good gin.