A poll this week revealed that Americans hold pretty low opinions of many institutions. Bloggers (like me), Congress and banks rank among the lowest.

I can't explain dislike for bloggers, except that there are too many who shoot off statements without checking facts.

Congress is easier. They had the president and majorities in both houses, and they still accomplished very little for the common man. However, I am sure many lobbyists are satisfied with Congressional efforts.

Banks are easier yet. The government is providing money to them almost for free, but it is very difficult for most people to get a loan. That difficulty seems to be an overreaction to the banks' recent practices of lending money to anyone who walked in the door. And we are all still suffering from all the foreclosures that resulted from that foolishness.

Wayne County officials recently announced that 13,000 tax-foreclosed properties will be auctioned off this month. Starting bid? $500. Can't make it to this one? It is online. And there will be another in October.

Meanwhile, in the April-June quarter most Americans failed to break even with their investments -- mostly due to the markets falling. To get back to where we were before the recession, most of us would have to see those investments rise by 23 percent.

In the face of all this dismal news, the Democrats are appealing to voters not to be too angry. They are claiming it would have been worse with the Republicans in charge.

That may be, but it is pretty clear that those who were in charge, spent a whole lot of money on what they called economic stimulus packages, but those bills were really pet Democratic programs.

And, quite predictably, those pet programs did not succeed in stimulating the economy.

The worst part of all this is that those in Congress seem to think that the voters are too stupid to have figured this out. Why do Americans hold Congress in low esteem? Because when we really needed someone to lead us out of this mess, out leaders were focused on their own agendas.