This weekend the Bush administration proposed a 700 Billion dollar bail out of the US financial system. The president requested wide spread authority for the treasury department to buy mortgage assets from various financial institutions through out the US. This solution to the crisis was put together by Ben S. Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve and Henry M. Paulson Jr. the Treasury secretary. This dramatic plan is aimed at preventing another Great Depression.

In March the Fed bailed out Bear Stearns and more recently Merrill Lynch, but let Lehman Brothers go under. The government then went on to salvage the American International Group (AIG) the giant insurer many considered to be the safest investment there was.

The questions Americans across the country are asking are, "Will this bail out work" "Are there more bailouts to come" and "Are our financial futures at risk". The tentative answers are yes no and no. At least that is what the government wants us to think. There is no real guarantee bailing out financial giants will save the economy because the $700,000,000,000 is coming out of taxpayers pockets. The real challenge will come to the next president of the United States who will have enormous pressure to right the wrongs of former administration. Whether it be John McCain of Barack Obama, the new president will have to change the way the mortgage system in America works and create surer safer more fool proof methods of investment.

Based on the current economic situation in America I think that our economic system in general could use a bit of a tune up. Instead of adopting a policy of nearly laissez faire capitalism as the government has in recent years, there should be some regulation of large institutions like investment banks. If the government had more regulation on these banks the mortgage crisis could have been prevented all together because the people who foreclosed wouldn't have been able to get a loan to start with.

Another problem with the current government system is the lack of representation in government. When Congress was established in the 1770's each congressman represented only 30,000 people, but now each congressperson represents an average of 7 million people. One person representing 7 million people doesn't sound like government totally by the people. Smaller groups of people should be represented by congresspeople, maybe not 30 thousand to one but something smaller than 7 million to one. I think this would be a more representative form of government than the current system and would better serve the American people.