My bank failed. On a Thursday no less, having lost “$16.7 billion in deposits between Sept. 15 and this past Wednesday [Sept. 24].” WaMu now has the distinction of being “by far the biggest U.S. bank in history to fail.”

WaMu’s failure is my first personal exposure to the greater abstract housing turned credit crisis overflowing into everything else. It’s been a gentle introduction. WaMu branches were open on Friday, and their website works just the same. The $100K FDIC limit is a distant horizon for me, so I’ve not been fretting about my checking account.

But it’s not like my bank’s problems are isolated or unique. I see no evidence that this is the worst of what we’ll see, as we’ve done nothing to fix the underlying failures that got us to this point. I worry that we are still too ignorant and pacified as a whole to force any real change for the benefit of all instead of the bailout of the few. Indeed, we can’t even seem to agree that there is a systemic problem. Is it such a drastic step to ponder if there is actually good cause that businesses mistrust the soundness of their peers? Does anyone think that giving free money to a host of gambling addicts is the way to solve our problems? Why are we getting emergency, hastily thrown together legislation, when it’s been obvious since Bear Stearns at the very latest that we were in for some serious pain and perhaps some thoughtful relief could help us on the way down? Being a measly middle class taxpayer, it’s rather difficult to not be cynical when told that you get to bail out the wealthy who have no incentive to not do it all again. Pelosi says, “We sent a message to Wall Street: The party is over,” but from what I understand of the latest proposal, while more palatable than the first outrageous excuse for a plan, we’re still offering up plenty of fresh beer, except the likes of me still isn’t invited.