This man has successfully posed as the American president since 2001. He has pulled off an incredible variety of politically suicidal stunts and his latest effort is possibly one of the best.

Thousands of people lose their homes. George appears to do nothing, apart from talking up the US economy. A little while later, millions of people have lost their homes. Still nothing.

A few bankers lose their shirts. George and the Federal Reserve hand over billions and billions of dollars to prop them up. Suddenly, lots of bankers and stockbrokers have lost their shirts, and George is looking to hand them nearly a trillion dollars.

What I don't understand is this -> if he has a trillion dollars to spare (and I think the only way he could is to get the U.S mint printing 24 hours a day), why doesn't he buy up the houses that have been foreclosed, and rent them back to the previous owners, or even more radically, give them back. Surely the same amount would be spent, people would have a place to live, and the banks and stockbrokers would no longer be carrying a trillion dollars worth of debt. The real estate market and stock markets might even recover. Sounds politically astute to me. But I'm sure the answer would be, 'that's not the way we do things here.'

I love conspiracy theories, so I'll throw one out there: I wonder if the whole thing is an exercise to create the biggest market manipulation the world has ever seen. If it is, expect US real estate and stocks to be up substantially again, sometime next year, along with banker/stockbroker purchases of Porsches, Mercedes Benzes and condominiums by the sea. Alternatively, it really is an economic crisis, but Congress is so sick of Bush's 'the sky is falling/our country's security is at stake/cry wolf' statements that they don't believe him. Who knows?