The more things change . . .

Despite all the smoke and mirrors, hue and cry--financial markets ended the week right where they started.

After a stirring 370 point rally Friday, and a couple of hundred the day before, the stock market closed at roughly the same level it had opened on the previous Monday. Fed cattle sold steady with the previous week, at $99 live and $154 dressed.

All the hand wringing and finger pointing by the politicians, who are meeting in smoke-filed rooms in Washington D.C. over this weekend in emergency session to craft a bail-out bill for the nation's economy, it's all pretty much where it started. Last weekend featured the bailout of AIG and Merrill Lynch, and the refusal to bail out Lehman Brothers. Then came the raising of some $200 billion in short term liquidity loans from the world's reserve banks to ordinary bankers.

None of this seemed to be good enough, and after Thursday meetings of Congressional leaders with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke--from which reportedly people like House Finance Committee Chairman Barney Frank, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid emerged "ashen faced," Congress supposedly is set to pass yet another massive bipartisan bail-out bill before they adjourn for the really crucial fall campaigning break at the end of next week.

The nation is running out of "emotional on-edgeness" and is starting to accept crisis as normal and usual. The gut-wrenchingly overly dramatic is only that way if you let it be--and the public is started to be innurred and seared to the point of numbness.

Cattlemen and farmers face risk and crisis almost every day, by way of weather, pestilence, fickle markets and the folly of politicians. They take it in stride and move on. They have a unique perspective and ability to digest the day's events without panic or breathlessness.

If only the press and politicians could adopt some of that.