Our government is about to grow considerably:
(3) ESTABLISHMENT OF TREASURY OFFICE.—
(A) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary shall implement any program under paragraph (1)
through an Office of Financial Stability, established for such purpose within the Office of Domestic Finance of the Department of the Treasury, which office shall be headed by an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, except that an interim Assistant Secretary may be appointed by the Secretary.

The above is text taken verbatim from the bail-out Bill, H.R. 1424, available on line. My local news channel published the doc in its entirety. Interesting reading if you learned how to scan a document to look for relevant info.

Office of Financial Stability? This is going to mean thousands of jobs between the Treasury Office down to local/ regional levels. I only had access to the text, not the figures, but if I had to guess, I'd say this massive staff requirement is a major reason why the bail-out Bill swelled from 600B to 700B seemingly overnight.

My response to this has been to pay off all of my credit cards. The only debts I now have besides my mortgage are two loans made on behalf of my son, now dead so I must repay them. (See Randy- many of us continue to do for our grown children even when it is not in their best interest or- ours.) I think this was so important to me because with so much economic chaos, I had to know for certain that my finances were in order, and that the ink at the bottom of my statement was black, not red.

In other quarters, the friend who was with me for a time after my son died moved on. I thought being alone again might be rough at night, but I am just fine. I am re-organizing my house, getting it back to the way it was before I had to accommodate another person. Feels good and emotionally, it fits right in with with the 'getting my house in order' part above.

When I disappear for a few days, like recently, it is usually because I am working on a publication for the USCG Auxiliary. I have a big one coming up- a magazine- at the end of this month, but I will check in as often as possible.