The line is actually out of Dumb and Dummer, where Lloyd grabs his friend’s face after seeing supposed gun-toting public utility collection agents outside their front door.

But this is no movie we’re in. It’s the United States government.

I wanted to have a blog post specific to this day. I will want to remember the day the goverment stepped in to provide $85 billion in “short-term” funding to the world’s largest insurer, AIG. I want to remember that this was the day before AIG would likely have declared bankruptcy, crushing under the weight of it’s own derivitaves, credit swaps, and other complex financial instruments that were great when the going was good, but have proven, uh, not so good now.

Okay, maybe that’s an understatment. AIG’s failure would have proven nearly catestrophic to the US economy. That’s right - your job - your portfolio - your retirement. Poof. In exchange, we get the government owning the largest porfolio of mortgages/mortgage guarantees in the world (Freddie Mae/Mac), and the largest portfolio of insurance and insurance related products in the world (AIG), not to mention one of the largest investment banks in the world (Bear Sterns).

So here’s what scares me even more. When the people own companies, that’s called a free market. When the government owns them, it’s called communism.  Which direction, exactly, are we headed?