When you look at that $825 billion bailout, what do you see? Massive government spending? Necessary infrastructure changes? Something shiny? It’s like a Rorschach test for political dogma. So if you’re confused by Rush Limbaugh’s explanation – who isn’t? – here’s a balm: stop listening to self-involved blowhards and listen to people who actually studied economics! Listen to Ali Velshi, CNN’s top business correspondent and author of the new book, Gimme My Money Back. He joins Wilshire & Washington hosts Ted Johnson, Maegan Carberry, and Teresa Valdez-Klein for a spirited discussion on Obama’s big bailout, nationalizing the banks, using new media and social networking, the difficulties of explaining such complex financial issues to the public, and what people can do to improve their own financial position in this struggling economy.

Maegan introduces her new bipartisan project with MediaLizzy (found here), The REAL 100 Days, which will track the media’s coverage of the Obama’s first few months in office and highlight common ground between Republicans and Democrats. Ted, Maegan, and Teresa also tackle Rush as the Republican opposition (they can do better), the hilarious media blitz put forth by Governor Rod Blagojevich (Oprah, really?), and the difficulty of filling open Senate seats (where’s the special election, people?). Join us for this fascinating episode of Wilshire & Washington.

Listen to the show here, subscribe to the iTunes podcast, or use the Blog Talk Radio player:

Wilshire & Washington, the weekly Blog Talk Radio program that explores the intersection of politics, entertainment, and new media, features co-hosts Ted Johnson, Managing Editor of Variety; conservative blogger Teresa Valdez Klein (www.teresacentric.com), and liberal blogger Maegan Carberry (www.maegancarberry.com). The show airs every Wednesday at 7:30am PST on BlogTalkRadio.com.

9:30 am EST: Market immediately heads into a nosedive. Asleep.

10 am EST: Market continues to head into the pits. Asleep.

10:30 am EST: I wake up to hear the market is crashing. Fear mixes with dread. Then NPR launches into a long report about how police have discovered dozens and dozens of dead bodies scattered throughout Tijuana. The bodies are found in schools, half buried, on the sidewalk – basically anywhere where there’s a flat surface. Many bodies are shot in the face, or simply beheaded. I breathe a sigh of relief and go back to sleep.

11 am EST: The market is imploding, going under 10,000 for the first time in five years. I expect people will probably start jumping out of windows at this point. Sadly, I live in a two-storey building so nobody would die here. I continue to sleep.

12 pm EST: The market briefly recovers. Blogs are published across the net, offering new advice and more hate toward the bailout program. I drink tea.

1 pm EST: I get to work. I feet my cat. I log onto LOZcat for fun.

2 pm EST: The market keeps falling and so does gas prices. Since I don’t have a car, a job to go to, any savings, any financial security, a need for loans, at-work healthcare, medical expenses, or even a retirement account of any sort, I still don’t care. I drink my second cup of tea, which is often the worst of the three I usually indulge in on any given morning.

3 pm EST: The market falls under 9600. Pacemakers all skip a beat. Old people start rioting in the streets. Social Security anthropomorphizes and throws a flag through Paulson’s chest. NPR is discussing Prop 7, which involves solar power. I tune out in favor of peanut butter and honey.

5 pm EST: I don’t notice two hours going by. I have my third cup of tea. Much better. The market is closed. Wow, what a day.

Originally Posted on The Huffington Post:

Friday was International Talk Like A Pirate Day, in case you hadn’t noticed. Everyone’s getting into the act, even Google, as they unveiled a “pirate slang” version of their home page. But no one, not even Google, could compete with the pirate-talk of Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr.

In his press conference today addressing the bailouts of major financial institutions on Wall Street, Paulson donned his eye-patch, shouldered his sword, and doffed his best pirate cap:

“I am convinced that this bold approach will cost American families far less than the alternative – a continuing series of financial institution failures and frozen credit markets unable to fund economic expansion.” Arr.

“These illiquid assets are clogging up our financial system, and undermining the strength of our otherwise sound financial institutions. As a result, Americans’ personal savings are threatened, and the ability of consumers and businesses to borrow and finance spending, investment, and job creation has been disrupted.” Avast, me matey.

“We’re talking hundreds of billions.” What foul-smelling grog.

No offense, Mr. Paulson, but the $600 billion tab, according to estimates from the AP, you’re handing US taxpayers is official, state-sanctioned piracy. You’ve threatened us with your sword of economic catastrophe, taken our taxpayer treasure, and handed it to the same pirates and thieves that got us into this mess.

We have no recourse. We can’t say, “Hey, Mr. Government, would you mind spending those $600 billion on roads, safe bridges, green energy infrastructure, and education? No? Ah.” Well, we can, but it won’t amount to beans. We have been keelhauled by our own government, laying the risk-averse American public – those people who can’t afford to invest more than the $100,000 the FDIC insures – with all the responsibility of decades of capitalistic piracy.

So, please, spare us the pirate talk. My parrot could do better.

Obviously, these are incredibly sophisticated economic problems. But that doesn’t mean the Treasury’s solution isn’t criminally wrong. A friend recently compared the bailout to the myth of Daedalus. An inventor of great things, Daedalus built wax wings for him and his son, Icarus, to escape a prison island. Icarus, however, kept flying higher and higher, his ambition too great, and came so close to the sun that the wax melted and he plummeted to his death in the ocean. This myth is meant to teach us wisdom, common sense, and humility. But in the US Government’s 2008 sequel, Icarus doesn’t die; no, he falls but is caught a net and saved. Deus ex machina, we call it. Icarus learns no lesson, and neither does Daedalus.

Paulson is putting out the net for these falling financial institutions, saving them from their greed, and teaching them only that the government will not let them fail. So, Mr. Paulson, you are bailing out people who knew exactly what they were getting into, and many people who weren’t smart enough to know any better. Yes, millions of people are going to lose their homes, and will end up with horrible credit scores. They will suffer, oh yes, for years. But the people who knew better, the government is bailing them out.

For the money we are going to spend bailing out the investment and insurance industries, we probably could have paid for health insurance and higher education for everyone in this country. Imagine that: we’ve got socialized banking, courtesy of cutthroat, free-market capitalism, but we still can’t afford socialized medicine.

Blame Bush, blame Clinton, blame Paulson, blame Greenspan, blame Bernanke, blame those who didn’t read the fine print on their loans, blame those who took advantage of a progressively dumber population; none of these will shoulder the true responsibility. They’ll all be dead and gone by the time we finish paying for the sins of these pirates. So yo, ho, ho, and hand me that bottle of rum. We’re going under, friends.