Mad as hell (about the economy).

This is a call to arms for the college crowd. It's high time we set aside our political differences for a minute and take a long, hard look at the crisis in front of us.

Yesterday, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley resigned their titles as investment banks, marking "the end of an era on Wall Street." Under the new "bank holding" classification, they can now borrow money from the Fed's discount window. This is a last-ditch effort to keep the institutions solvent and avoid the fates of Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, and Merrill Lynch.

Their actions are just the latest in a series of events that make up the economic crisis we're in today. By some accounts, we were five hundred trades away from "armageddon." Congressional leaders were informed over the weekend that "we’re literally maybe days away from a complete meltdown of our financial system, with all the implications here at home and globally.”



Outside of Wall Street, "tent cities" are now springing up in the outskirts of cities with the highest repossession rates. Unemployment is at a five-year high of 6.1%. Easy access to credit distracted the masses from noticing that "wage and salary increases that have occurred since 2000 have not been sufficient to even maintain the level of income that most families enjoyed at the beginning of this decade."

It's no wonder that a new poll from American Research Group shows that exactly zero percent believe that the national economy is getting better.

So what's the solution? Well, if you are to believe Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson -- a Goldman Sachs alum, no less -- then we should have American taxpayers hand over $700 billion to keep these banks afloat, while refusing oversight and defying regulations on executive compensation.

I don't think so. Folks, I've got to be honest with you. I'm not completely sure how we got here, or what we should do now. I don't know a whole lot about the current situation; few do. At a time when the government is asleep at the switch, executives are pointing fingers, and the rest of us are left in the dark, it's safe to say that anyone telling you who is at fault is merely trying to deflect the blame.



Frankly, finding out who to blame is not what's important at the moment.

A scapegoat is not what we need. What we need is a solution that both safeguards the national economy while being fair to the American people. If we're going to pay for this mess, then it's within our right to make sure that our money is used properly.

This is where you come in. You see, as college students, we're inclined to defer the responsibility of holding our government accountable to our elders. They're the taxpayers, after all. None of this affects us right now, so why should we care?

This line of thought is misguided. The $700 billion requested will not come out of thin air, and the current taxpayers will not be wholly responsible for this. A significant portion of this check will become our responsibility, and we must do everything in our power to protect our interests.

And yet, some of you may wish to plead ignorance. To quote Howard Beale: "It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out any more. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we're living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials, and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.'"



Well, I'm not going to leave you alone. I want you to get mad!

Outside of the partisan bickering, both Obama and McCain agree that this bailout bill is fundamentally flawed. In fact, virtually everyone -- from Krugman to Kristol -- has gone on the record as being against this bill. It's now up to our elected officials to do the job that they were elected to do.

So, what can we do to ensure that?

Spread the word.
Tell your friends to stand up for themselves.
Call or write your local congressman.
Call or write the Obama and McCain campaigns.
Express your outrage.
Tell them how you feel about being shafted by Wall Street.
Tell them we must ensure that our tax dollars are being used properly.
Tell them that oversight is non-negotiable.

I've had enough of being a passive observer as our government and economy crumbles. This is no time for partisanship. It's time for us to come together and save what's left of the country we will soon inherit.

I don't know about you, but I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore.