Loss of trust is the result of many failures: declines in integrity and ethics, breakdowns in credibility and reputation, and the inability to communicate and lead.

Age of Innocence, The movie download

A 9/30/08 Time.com story on by Michael Scherer, The Bailout Defeat: A Political Credibility Crisis, talks about the “culmination of a historic sense of betrayal that Americans have long felt for their representatives in Washington. The nation’s credit crisis on Monday, 9/29/08, exposed a much deeper and more fundamental problem: a crisis of political credibility that now threatens to harm our nation further, should the markets freeze up and more companies begin to fail, as many experts predict.”

The article goes on to say that a critical mass of voters refused to trust their leaders, resulting in many politicians responding to the will of the people, and, therefore, opposing the bill.

Because there was no one to stand up and explain the situation, the nation now risks great financial hardship. Other economists have warned of the possibility of widespread corporate failures and unemployment.

The Time story concludes by stating that the trust between the people and their politicians was broken years ago.