Having written that, it is quite easy, at this ,to suppose that a system could be overly regulated, but that none of the regulations were informed or policed to any effect other than letting the swine at the trough. The ‘golden rule’ didn’t quite get at those potentials, so others were written, and here we find ourselves.

As the saying goes, The poor will always be with us…so too wil be the greed-heads, who will hire twenty others to find loopholes in the regs.

I’m afraid that we’re afraid of failure. As I said before, failure is good for the economy. Risk taking and failure are what drive innovation and success. We can regulate industries to avoid failure and have a mediocre economy that is pretty well off, or we can let businesses take risk and succeed or fail. As individuals, we can all choose where we work, what stock we purchase, and wherever else we invest our money. I hope I don’t sound heartless. I really believe that people are better off in the long-run with a very lightly regulated economy. I don’t want anyone to lose a job or their retirement savings, that’s just the risk we assume by enjoying the benefits of the most productive economy in the history of the world.

But you’re wrong about policies – presidents and administrations and political parties favor, support and enact policies. Deregulation – strongly pushed by Republicans – created the environment in which a great many decisions and choices were made by corporations that created unnecessary risks. When regulatory agencies are run by industry lobbyists, they do a poor job of regulating those industries- and often draft policies that serve the short term needs of industries. What we’re seeing is the outcome of deregulation run wild. Business practices that would never have occurred under an older regulatory structure were allowed and are now driving huge businesses into failure. That is the fault of the people who ran the agencies, who drafted the laws.

One of the most important aspects of a “free market” is that the weakest businesses get weeded out and better ones pick up the slack and improve things. Bailouts give us a temporary sense of security but only deflate optimism for the future that could be.

It’s also important to realize that the economy fluctuates up and down all the time. It would do this even if economic policies never changed. I think it’s pretty hard to attribute any particular swing to a president’s policies, whether the swing is positive or negative. We give presidents way too much credit.

Few people realize, Bush Sr. HAD to raise taxes for the same reason.

Cutting taxes for the rich, trickle-down, and supply-side, did and does, not work.

The free market economy will take care of itself, right? So, finally the Republicans get control of the White House, Senate and Congress and get what they wanted; total deregulation. What was the ultimate outcome? Nationalization of 3 major financial companies; nationalization isn’t that kinda, well Socialist?

So I get it, the way to liberalize our economy is to give the conservatives what they want. Well hind sight is 20/20.

Obama has a challenge Clinton didn’t have though – if he gets to tough he comes cross the “scary angry Black Man” which sends lots of white people into screaming hysterics.