Hear that ticking sound? That’s the sound of the timer counting down to a cataclysmic meltdown of our economy.

Yet, as is usually the case, there does not seem to be any sense of urgency in Washington to get something done.

That’s in part because it is hard to imagine just how much 700 billion dollars is. It doesn’t seem real. As they say, after awhile it adds up to real money.

But make no mistake. This crisis is all too real. The warnings being sounded by Fed Chief Ben Bernanke and Treasury boss Henry Paulson urging Congress to take action are backed up by a belief that we could be on the verge of an economic collapse not seen since the days of the Depression.

Ironically, it’s some Republicans in Congress who are screaming the loudest about this rescue plan. They say it does not provide a solution to the problem, that it does not do enough to help average Americans who are struggling to pay bills, including their mortgages, and that it will reward titans of finance who put this mess into play in the first place.

They are all good points. But they don’t change the urgent need to take action.

There is plenty of time to argue what happened in this debacle, who was at fault, who was asleep at the switch and what can be done to prevent it from happening again.

Right now we need to take action to stop the rest of the economy from sliding over the edge into the abyss.