Don't blame the capitalists ... heck, we haven't had capitalism in this country since at least the days of FDR. This is a mess created by the mercantalist (Ron would say fascist) tendencies of the very over-weaning and tendentious government of which the founders so wisely warned us.

Question: when countries embrace free markets, do they become more prosperous or less? We have several tragic experiments to observe, controlled for cultural differences; Korea for instance comes immediately to mind. Take a gander:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/dprk/dprk-dark.htm

Civic, political, social, and religious freedom can't be and never has been meaningfully separated from economic freedom. I'm for unmitigated freedom. How about you?

David

If ever a time should come when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin. (Samuel Adams)

The solution to our present woes is NOT more regulation. The only way to get our economy back on track is to PREVENT the government from having the power to mess thing up as they have been doing for the last 70 years. Please read this:

http://breakthematrix.com/Economy/In-the-U-S-Selectively-Applied-Capital...

While, I do agree with all of the sentiments, Farrell sounds like he wants lots of regulation back and an elimination of free markets.

I don't think Farrell does justice to the obvious implications of governement sponsored entities (GSEs) like Fannie and Freddie. These two entities are socialist and were given a mandate to increase investment in favored sectors of the economy, namley housing.

Couple this with the Federal Reserves outragoues manipulation of the money supply, more socialist central economic planning, and lack of ethics or moral code of many CEOs in finance and you have the perfect storm of decay.

Still this is a must must read. I wish Farrell would have shaded things a little different, don't blame a system for the failings of men. Or more precisely, a leadership vaccum in our society.

Yo,

Our time is NOW.

excellent piece by Paul Farrell... tried to submit it but you beat me to it :)