Do you gamble? Ever bet on a horse race, visit Las Vegas to spin roulette wheel, play bingo at church, buy a scratch ticket or sit down for small-stakes poker with friends? No? How about investing your retirement savings in mutual funds, stocks or bonds? Purchasing property in hopes of banking equity on its appreciated value?

They're all the same, really. There are varying degrees of legitimacy and social acceptance, but in the end you ante up hard-earned money in hopes of ending the day with more than you started. There's risk involved, since the future outcome holds no guarantee.

Americans love the concept. We're spoon-fed the strike-it-rich dream from day one. It doesn't bother us to know that the "house" generally wins more than we do; that's how the game keeps going. Everybody knows that. But we do expect a little more from the house when it's a governmental body advocating free markets than we would from a private casino.

Or at least we should. Apathy, however, appears to stand in the way of legitimate protest. How else to explain the latest financial maneuvering in our nation's capital?

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, companies that hold or guarantee more than half our nation's mortgages -- more than $6 trillion -- announced in the past week their collective peril. Exposure to the subprime housing crisis has made their portfolios more than somewhat suspect, which has been compounded by a plunge in consumer confidence and a mass exodus of nervous investors. Not surprisingly their stock prices have plummeted, which makes it difficult to raise capital.

The solution from the White House, which is supported by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department and more than likely will get the approval by Congress, is to bail out the companies. Let them draw emergency loans, have their lines of credit increased and have the government even buy their stock are the suggested means to save the economy. The justification offered is that these two troubled institutions play too significant a role in both national and international markets; not being willing to prop them up would throw our country into further economic turmoil.

We view the bailout from a different perspective. We see it as a blatant reverse-Robin Hood move to transfer wealth directly from citizens to corporations. The federal government, after all, does not possess money of its own. Rather, it is funded through taxation. The feds also can raise artificial debt ceilings or even print more money.

In short, the federal government is prepared to use taxpayer dollars -- our hard-earned money -- to subsidize an enormous blunder that would have sunk most companies in a true free-market economy.

This move is not akin to changing interest rates, imposing tariffs or even rewriting the tax codes. All those help define the parameters of the marketplace -- and should be applicable to all.

No, passing along the costs of an extremely bad gamble and allowing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to continue operating does nothing to curb the risky behavior exhibited. Do you think the government will refund all the money lost by an individual at a horse track or at the bingo parlor? Absolutely not.

This not-so-invisible hand of government interference has brought token initial criticism from both parties. But it will pass. And the little guy will lose -- again.

We suspect this has less to do with the soundness of the bailout plan than the companies' combined 142 lobbyists and $170 million in contributions to politicians during the past 10 years.

That's not the American dream we were taught. This is an American nightmare. And it's being forced upon us by the very individuals we elected to represent our interests.

It's time to wake up, America. We've become enslaved to a system that has no conscience. This "house" always wins. That sounds like a sucker bet to us.

Editorial by Patrick Lowry

plowry@dailynews.net