Once upon a time people were farmers, bankers, businessmen, doctors or sea captains – and they also became senators, congressmen or President. They understood business, trade, working for a living and living on what you made. They went to the same doctors, bankers and shop keepers as the rest.

Today, we have lawyers who have gone to law school, learned how to argue whatever point they were issued to argue and grew up privileged. They come out of school and into politics, where they climb the ladder's rungs until they become congressman, senator or president. At that point, they have preferred and specialized health care, huge salaries and bonuses that they can vote to increase and a huge collection of perks that continue for life. Once a senator or congressman, or president, is voted out, the money, healthcare and perks continue in perpetuity.

I want that retirement package. Let me run for office, travel around, show up for a vote or two, laze off the rest of the time and get voted out of office for not doing squat. Then let me enjoy the ongoing perks until I finally kick on my 109th birthday.

Lately, 82% to 86% of the public, depending on who you listen to, is unhappy with the performance of the Congress (that is, Congress and Senate) and President. They just haven't been performing! Why? Because they are doing what they were trained to do, what their life and work experience has prepared them for: arguing the point they were told to argue.

It doesn't matter whether a law student believes what he is arguing or not – and it is called arguing – he must argue the point as if it was his life's calling. That is what we are seeing in the collection of talking heads who have been explaining what is going on with our economy. No matter who is doing the speaking, it is the same: an argument with a trained debater taking the side.

A nationwide disaster with global repercussions was narrowly avoided recently, along with a controversial lowering of the nation's credit rating. As soon as it was done, the Congress went on vacation. The President is at Camp David.

This is a game to these folks. They get their healthcare – different from what the rest of us get – regardless of their performance, they get paid regardless of the state of the budget, they get perks that never show up in the budget and cannot therefore be cut. Just like in college, when law students went into a debate, argued back and forth, then went out for beers and laughs, these lawyers, who have never worked a real job, never lived off of the money, never worried about their livelihood or that of their family, never worried if they will go broke by visiting a doctor, debated the pros and cons of the budget and then went on vacation.

Who's running the country?

The question is rhetorical. The only possible answer is: irresponsible law students.

What we need, in my humble but well-traveled opinion, is new candidates who have dirt under their nails and histories of running successful businesses, practices or farms. We need senators and congressmen who know what their constituents are going through and are willing and able to represent them responsibly. We need people in Congress who don't follow every tough week with a month-long vacation. And we need a President who knows the difference between good advice and bad advice. And in my personal opinion, giving millions of dollars to a handful of bankers who screwed up so they can screw up again, bigger, and get paid for it, is bad advice. (“Let's give it to AIG, they can't afford their next party.”)

I vote that we consider the education, experience and work history of the next people we vote into office and in the process vote out the Law Students. And I vote that we pass a law that when they are voted out of office or reach their term limits, they are done and are no longer paid – they have to go back to work like the rest of us and live on what they make.

It's just my opinion, but it ought to be yours.

Simply everyone is making those puns these days. But then, we can't all be financial experts; we can all be out-of-work comics.

Alan Greenspan said that we can pay off our nation's debts because the FED can simply print more money. This only proves once again that those who do not know history are doomed to relive it. The Continental Congress tried that back in 1778, running the presses night and day until the money was worthless. The popular phrase of the day was “not worth a Continental.”

Of course, that's one way to pay off a debt, just devalue the money until it takes a million dollars to have breakfast. Paying off the National Debt is easy when a Trillion Dollars is what you have in your pocket on any given afternoon.

I have a sneaking suspicion that someone is making a fortune off of the lowering of the U.S. Credit Rating. But then, I have a stable datum that whatever happens, someone is making a ton of money from it. I believe it is all controlled and manipulated. Does that make me paranoid or a realist?

One of these days, it will all come out. Documents will be discovered or someone will write a book, and the whole conspiracy, with names named, will be revealed to the public. Of course, only a handful of historians will know what it is referring to and all the players will be long dead. I will be vindicated, but I will be long dead as well. That is what “they” are counting on: that no one will notice until it's too late, and then no one will care. It's the not caring in the first place that is allowing it to happen.

With 87% of people polled disapproving of the job Congress and the President are doing, I would expect an overwhelming wave of loud dissent. Yet, there is only a whimper as we roll over and play dead, hoping ravenous debt will not devour us. It will devour us anyway, whimper nor no.

Perhaps the dissent will be heard in November of 2012. Perhaps 2013 will see a new batch of people running things, a batch that will care about this country and its people. If that doesn't happen, we won't just be in trouble, we will have been in trouble for a long time and will then be lost.

When asked what kind of government he had given the new country, Benjamin Franklin said, “A Republic; if you can keep it.” He knew that it was possible to lose the USA. We must know it.