EJ Dione of the Washington Post gives us a response simply based on the politics of the issue: “But those so-called average voters understand the difference between low- and high-stakes elections. They develop a reasonably good sense of who is telling the truth and who is not. And though it sometimes takes a while — and a shock like this week’s economic news — these voters almost always turn on politicians who manipulate cultural symbols as a way to escape the consequences of their policies.
In 1936, FDR argued that “private enterprise, indeed, became too private. It became privileged enterprise, not free enterprise.” He insisted that “freedom is no half-and-half affair. If the average citizen is guaranteed equal opportunity in the polling place, he must have equal opportunity in the market place.”
The stakes in this year’s election went way up this week. The days of Paris, Britney and the exploitation of divisions around race, gender and religion are over. ”

To understand the Economics of our situation is very complicated. To understand the politics should be simpler, once we get beyond lipstick and pigs. The debates will hopefully help to clear this up

• Merits aside, a big pro-growth tax cut is a non-starter. Not going to happen.

• Personally, I don’t believe you can trust the WSJ when it comes to comments about regulations. They’ll always say it’s bad idea.

And in this case, they’re suggesting that regulation could not have done anything to stop lenders from making risky loans to bad credit risks. Or to prevent creative accounting that obscured the severity of the situation and obscured risk and exposure.

This boils down to easy credit fueling speculation and “creative” investment vehicles. That many banks now stand to fail is prima facie evidence that they lack good judgement in issuing loans and understanding investment vehicles.

All the folks involved in marketing interest-only no down payment loans with the time-bomb fuse of later balloon payments should be shot and pissed on, for starters. The purveyors of these things managed to sell the risk to other folks who were misled about the risks. And now, once again, the taxpayer and the average joe are left holding the bag.

More regulation IS going to happen, and Wall Street should just shut their mouths and take their medicine, because they’re the ones who brought this sh!t upon themselves, as well as upon us.