What this country needs is a good depression. The longer the better. For the past week, the entire nation or, “Main Street,” as our illustrious leaders call it, has watched helplessly as the market has tanked and the government politicizes a response of unprecedented scale.

I’ve had it.

Let Wall Street crash. I want to see bankers on the run, chaos on the floor, and a shortage of red ink at Office Depots everywhere.

As for the bailout plan - a $700 billion warm fuzzy for corporate America courtesy our tax dollars - let that fail too. Wall Street doesn’t need saving; it needs remaking.

A $700 billion bailout for failed private enterprise? Federal takeovers of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Lehman Brothers? The convenient government seizure and selling of Washington Mutual? How about AIG?

And how about you? How about your parents, your family and friends? What are you getting out of the deal?

If you’re like me, you haven’t gotten a dime in economic assistance from the federal government. If you’re like me, you were told in April that you “didn’t make enough money to qualify for the economic stimulus payment.”

Huh?

Right…because it’s not as though my fiscally irresponsible and rash decision-making, non-investing youthful self is going to do anything useful with the money… nah, couldn’t happen.

If there’s anything hilarious about the economic catastrophe that this country’s outgoing administration has blessed us with, it’s the undeniable irony of Bush-brand fiscal “conservatism.”

A few fun facts:

- This president has presided over the largest expansion of federal government since the New Deal.

- This president has overseen nearly unprecedented and uninterrupted tax cuts during a time of war.

And now, of course, the bailouts. At least $700 billion in one attempted rescue bill alone. Untold billions more for the acquisitions of Lehman Brothers, AIG, etc.

Next time I hear a Bush-supporting Republican spewing anti-Socialist nonsense, I may just vomit. Nationalized healthcare, indeed.

Although I obviously don’t wish to see anyone undeserving suffer as a result of the government and Wall Street’s absolute arrogance and incompetence, I strongly believe that it’s high time we face the music.

Perhaps not as individuals, but as a nation, we deserve this.

Perhaps a full-on market crash will succeed in teaching Wall Street a lesson where we the people have failed.

Perhaps now they will listen.

As I write this, I am fully aware that my views on this issue are not popular - at least among the more controlling forces of our society.

I don’t care.

If the government deems me so poor and inconsequential as to deny me a lousy $600 stimulus check, I can at least take comfort in the fact that I won’t be helping to preserve a morally bankrupt system.

Such is my disgust.

I cannot say, either, that I’m disappointed by what will surely be this crisis’ adverse effect on our position of global power.

It’s high time we were dethroned, or, as it were, deposed. 

Belgium may take our beloved Budweiser. China may have our shameful debt. Let them come into our self-anointed temple. Let them overturn our tables.

Right now, there are families - millions of them - across America that cannot afford to feed, clothe, and educate their children.

How has this happened? This is America. The land of “amber waves of grain,” the land of opportunity. Things like this do not happen here. They happen, but they do not happen here. This is America.

No. No, it’s not.