Meltdown - Wallstreet and Mainstreet

I was pretty much behind President G. Dubya Bush until Hurricane Katrina ripped into New Orleans. I, like everyone else, kept waiting for a reassuring embrace from our leader. Tell us that it'll be okay, that the problem isn't too big to fix and that people will be cared for. I waited, and I waited. Geezus, ARE YOU GOING TO REASSURE US? My confidence level in the current lame (or is it lame duck?) administration waned from that point on and a critical eye was opened to His past foibles, misstatements and outright untruths.

Now, I wait again. Where the heck are you Mr. President? Mainstreet's 401K's and investment accounts are plummeting. Jobs are falling away as fast. And what has this presidential administration done to assure us? Not much. A few "free market" speeches that fall on deaf ears in the wake of anything but free market governmental actions on Freddie and Fannie and of bailouts of favorite son financial firms deemed "too big to fail". A T.A.R.P. program to get the credit markets going again, but apparently had no conditions listed to the receiving institutions to actually use the money to get us going. So, much of the many billions sits helping no one but the receiving institution.

And Wallstreet is floundering miserably. The Dow Industrial average, the S&P 500 and the other major indices from the US and around the world are tanking. The selling has moved past the capitulation stage of a bear market and into a desparation and panic stage. Some of the large stocks currently looking like their demise is imminent include F, GM, C, CIT to name but a few. Driven to the brink by bad business management, greed and short selling of their stocks by heartless souls that care not about the jobs to be lost or the 401k's wrecked. TARP or not, I am not sure there is hope to save investors confidence at this point.

I believe that the SEC should immediately reinstate the "uptick rule" to help stabilze this ruthless short selling. Further, I would like to see shares that are for sale "short" shown as short shares on Level II quotes, that way I can make a more educated determination as an investor about an equities condition. If many of the shares for sale are short, I may certainly want to rethink whether I want to be a buyer...give us more transparency since hedge funds can operate under the radar as far as transparency goes. Give the little guy a better, more level playing field to participate on.