"We're just not seeing anything that suggests that members are worried about the safety of their savings here at the credit union," observed Jack Lawson, the Brooklyn Cooperative Manager. "The state of our loan [and mortgage] portfolio is healthier today than it was at the end of 2007…We're funding it locally, mostly by member savings and our own lines of business here, so the credit crunch and the liquidity crisis that is being felt in the macro economy isn't really having much of an effect on our day-to-day business."

The 5200 members of Brooklyn Cooperative are mostly low-income and working class people who are not deeply invested in the stock market. Bushwick has one of the highest foreclosure rates in Brooklyn, but most of the members are renters. Antoinette Darling, a Brooklyn Cooperative member who aspires to build a retirement savings, and perhaps own a home one day, said that she is more worried about the state of America in general than she is about the risk to her own financial well being. No matter how much risk she actually faces in the event of a severe financial downturn, the dangers to the economy that President Bush described the other night, as he was making his case for the bailout, were largely an abstraction for her.

Clearly, the more you have at stake in the capital markets of this economy, the more threatened you feel. Teckler Queely-Boyd, who runs a family day care in Crown Heights, has been closely following the headlines. "Sure I'm concerned. I don't have a lot of investments like others, but I have a home." As a micro-entrepreneur whose business is directly connected to the fortunes of her neighbors, her community's anxiety may instantly become her own: "What if my parents lose their jobs, or prices go up on them? How will they be able to pay for child care?"

Still, Ms. Queely,-Boyd, like most Americans, doesn't understand why people outside the financial services industry might lose their jobs. Or why inflation could get out of control. Or why, at a time when mortgages are going bad, someone might have difficulty getting, say, a car loan. And she has no idea how bad things could actually get, or what the bailout actually promises to do for her.

You have to wonder if whether Bush or either of the presidential candidates knows enough about the economy to clearly connect the dots between the bailout and the fortunes of ordinary people. The first political personality to actually explain the reality of this economic moment will earn the title "leader".