Everyone is so on edge lately about their finances and I don't blame them one bit.

 In the Allen household, I have teased my wife Mandy for years, referring to her as the "Queen Of Coupons". I am now so thankful that she so carefully watches our bottom line.

 There is a lot of resentment and confusion among people about why the Federal Government felt the need to bail-out Wall Street investment firms and banks to the tune of $700 billion. The short answer is: if the banks fail, we are done for. The crux of business, especially small business, if having an available line of credit with which to buy supplies and pay employees. As more and more banks fail, the ones that are surviving are hesitant to loan money out, unsure of who is a good risk and who is not after years of doling out money to anyone, regardless of credit history, job history, et cetera. If something isn't done to "loosen up" the surviving banks, they will simply hold on to their money, not loan out any money to anyone and watch and businesses close and people lose their jobs. If that were to happen, it would add to the strain on the nation's already weak economy.

 But what I wonder is: are we already past the point of no return? If there was sufficient government oversight in the first place, this wouldn't have happened. Where were the Feds when banks were passing out ARM's with balloon payments like candy? When the first signals of the mortgage crisis started, they sat on the sidelines and watched and hundreds then thousands of Americans were forced from their homes because the shaky loans they had taken out started to crash down around them. You're telling me no one in the Fed was aware of how many people had taken out loans like this and then couldn't to the math as to how many more mortgages would fail...and how it would affect the banks who had offered the loans in the first place?

 It is scary. On the surface, and so far there is nothing to refute this, it seems the nation's banking sector was on auto-pilot, left to it's own devices as to how to drum up new business and new customers.

 I'm not going to claim I was above all this. Mandy and I had an ARM mortgage on our home in Las Vegas and if we hadn't left when we did, our monthly payment would have exploded and we, more than likely, would have had to sell the house and hope we could get into another one at a decent price. As it is, we made a great profit on the house when we sold it and left. But it could have so easily gone the other way. When our lender offered us this mortgage, we were attracted to the low monthly payment. But our mortgage officer warned us, the payment could balloon and likely would at some point. Again, we were lucky and it worked out well. But while we knew the facts going on, so many others were either led to believe there was no danger or they knew the risks and did it anyway. Long story short, this isn't just the fault of the Fed.

 But again, what if this comes to late? With the Fed now having the power to buy up bad mortgages to take them off the books of struggling banks, the question then becomes what will the Fed to with them? How will those same mortgages now become a drag on the Fed and bring the economy down even more? What can the Fed to do make these bad investments somehow profitable? They're going to have to figure out a way to turn gunk into gold and they are going to have to do it soon.

 Quote Of The Day: "The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith." President Franklin D. Roosevelt

 This Day In History: The Great Fire of Chicago started on this date, October 8th, 1871;

 Something You Should Check Out: I am a big fan of the late drummer Buddy Rich. He is considered by many to be the best drummer of the 20th Century. I have a pair of drumsticks from his marketing line on my desk and when I need writing inspiration I take one of them out and pop out a rhythm while I think. To see why this man was so good, watch this. If you think it's no big deal, you try doing it!