I lived through the Reagan era as a Chrysler dealer. Reagan didn’t have a magic wand either and unemployment and weak consumer confidence lingered well into his first term. It looked like he wouldn’t be elected to a second term, but getting shot boosted his approval rating. The economy had improved enough by the presidential election that he won in a landslide.

In my view, we had been lulled into a sense of false security during the housing boom. We all thought that moves taken after the Great Depression would prevent us from falling into the abyss. The repeal of Glass Steagall didn’t seem like a big deal, but it was. We had weathered oil crises, the S&L meltdown, the junk bond collapse, the tech bubble bursting, etc. But when Lehman Brothers was allowed to go down and 780 billion dollars was ELECTRONICALLY extracted from the money market system, the term “run on the banks” took on new meaning. I had not been aware of this but during the banking crisis of 1930 following the 1929 collapse of the stock market, 28 states were left without one open bank.
Hence, we ended up with a hurriedly constructed TARP, which for all it’s faults probably saved us from the abyss.

There are sins of commission and sins of omission and the government is capable of both. The idea that insurance products like Collateralized Debt obligations and Credit Default Swaps should be allowed to be sold without oversight or regulation, with NO RESERVES required to pay claims is the most egregious dereliction of duty on the part of government I can recall in my lifetime. These guys sold these “policies” which prompted Fitch, Moddy, etc. to rate the “insured” investments as AAA, thereby transforming drech into gold. And the world gobbled them up. When it hit the fan, it was us as taxpayers who had taken the risk while AIG, Goldman etc. pocketed the spoils. When the ABS market collapsed, so went 40% of our credit system.

Stuff like this is enough to turn a good lifetime Republican into a Democrat! I’m ready to live with additional regulations. But I’ll sure be happy when things are settled enough for people to make business decisions.

I lived through the Reagan era as a Chrysler dealer. Reagan didn't have a magic wand either and unemployment and weak consumer confidence lingered well into his first term. It looked like he wouldn't be elected to a second term, but getting shot boosted his approval rating. The economy had improved enough by the presidential election that he won in a landslide.

In my view, we had been lulled into a sense of false security during the housing boom. We all thought that moves taken after the Great Depression would prevent us from falling into the abyss. The repeal of Glass Steagall didn't seem like a big deal, but it was. We had weathered oil crises, the S&L meltdown, the junk bond collapse, the tech bubble bursting, etc. But when Lehman Brothers was allowed to go down and 780 billion dollars was ELECTRONICALLY extracted from the money market system, the term “run on the banks” took on new meaning. I had not been aware of this but during the banking crisis of 1930 following the 1929 collapse of the stock market, 28 states were left without one open bank.
Hence, we ended up with a hurriedly constructed TARP, which for all it's faults probably saved us from the abyss.

There are sins of commission and sins of omission and the government is capable of both. The idea that insurance products like Collateralized Debt obligations and Credit Default Swaps should be allowed to be sold without oversight or regulation, with NO RESERVES required to pay claims is the most egregious dereliction of duty on the part of government I can recall in my lifetime. These guys sold these “policies” which prompted Fitch, Moddy, etc. to rate the “insured” investments as AAA, thereby transforming drech into gold. And the world gobbled them up. When it hit the fan, it was us as taxpayers who had taken the risk while AIG, Goldman etc. pocketed the spoils. When the ABS market collapsed, so went 40% of our credit system.

Stuff like this is enough to turn a good lifetime Republican into a Democrat! I'm ready to live with additional regulations. But I'll sure be happy when things are settled enough for people to make business decisions.

Alexander Fraser Tytler,(15 October 1747 – 5 January 1813)

“…A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

* From bondage to spiritual faith;
* From spiritual faith to great courage;
* From courage to liberty;
* From liberty to abundance;
* From abundance to complacency;
* From complacency to apathy;
* From apathy to dependence;
* From dependence back into bondage…”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Tytler