Money market funds: Are they safe?

I've already told this to Justin and Curmudgeon forced me to get a bit more explicit.

There are, generally, three ways that Americans feel wealthy or prosperous.
1) Equity in a home increases
2) Stocks, bonds, 401Ks
3) Advances in wages or compensation or increased opportunities for employment

Because the fundamental problem is that we have a dislocation between 1) the supply and demand of housing and 2) the ability of the buyer to buy houses at current prices, it seems that the fastestway to get the market back on track would be for the government to create jobs for average Americans or somehow engineer a rise in wages or compensation. I don't see how they can affect the market given the Fed's constraints in lowering interest rates versus inflation popping up its ugly head. Am I right? If so, it seems an FDR / Eisenhower style infrastructure investment in America would be ideal?!? Infrastructure being more than just roads and bridges but expansive, i.e. think energy, education, health care, etc. We need to go big on everything and generate jobs and income so that people can get back to feeling wealthy and the rest of the world can get back to feeling comfortable investing in America with relatively little fear.

Sounds like a stake in the ground by Paulson to me, Barbara. "This far, and no farther."

Bryan, I like the idea in theory (while we're at it, I really want to invest in the space program), but I would really like to believe that any feelings of wealth and contentment that I have are not dependent upon government programs.

Curmudgeon,

If nobody else is creating jobs, how else do you force job creation?

I can't think of any other way to force job creation. It's like the chicken or the egg. You have a consumer driven economy. The consumer loses their job or wages and either can't spend or much spend less. So the economy goes south. The only way that I can think of to reverse that is to either 1) give the consumer money or 2) give the consumer a job.

I suppose there is also the 3rd option of government and consumer just not spending as much and conserving as much as possible. But few people want to invest in a country with slowing growth and little future growth prospects.