Quote Originally Posted by denmason View Post
But more to the point: What part of "NO!" was it they didn't understand?
Dennis, normally you're the proponent of the thesis that 'US is a republic not a democracy', by which you seem to mean that it is representative, not direct democracy. The idea, as you are well aware is that the popular opinion can and often should be overriden by the elite, when they think that it's wrong. The majority is not always right.

As far as how bad things will get when the market overcorrects itself, that's just anybody's speculation. It seems to me that the reason americans oppose the bailout is that so far they have not been affected too much (in part because of the interventions so far).
Somehow though I have the feeling that either way those who will get it worst won't be the ones with the biggest losses (they'll have plenty left after that too).

In interest of full disclosure I'm probably more detached than most because I don't have much at stake - I can just leave the country if I don't like it here.