Wasn't the banks (or Wall St.), wasn't the politicians. it was many, many things.

It's like the illegal drug business, the banks are the pushers, they don't make it and don't force anyone to take it, they just make huge profits off of what passes through their hands. (I'm not applauding them, they could have done things differently but their goal, in the end, is to take home as big a pay day, bonus, as they could, while they could.)

The users loved the cheap and plentiful loans to buy houses, cars, whatever, on credit, got real high off of it.

The growers/producers were investors(individuals, penion plans, endowments fund, oil sheiks, anyone with funds) who didn't do their homework and would buy any piece of shat paper to earn and extra 0.01% interest.

The government and regulators were like the cops, most didn't see what was really going on, and once clued in couldn't agree on who to blame, proceute. or how to prevent it from happening again and barely kept the patient who had od'd from dying. The financial system was very, very close to the edge. The patient is really very ill, recovery will be very slow. Things will change over the coming years, some for the good, some not, some will prosper, some will not.

The economy will never recover in the U.S if jobs keep being sent overseas. No jobs, no money, no buying power. People can't survive on paper hat jobs. Not everyone wants or is capable of going to college. The graduating students come out of college with nothing but a piece of paper and huge debt and very few jobs to go to. Even the "Help" lines for so called American companies are being handled in India. It WAS GREED on Wall Street that caused much of this as well as deregulation. I'm waiting for deflation to kick in. May I'll get that dream guitar I've always wanted cheap.

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Life...... It's sexually transmitted and always fatal

It may not.

US international economic dominance and relative standard of living could be lower 20 years from now.

Hedge your bets, be very careful, I hope the price of guitars comes down more, (so far, all mine are made over there, if I learn to play better I'll invest in some good gear).

Learn to speak Mandarin, move to China and perform or teach em how to play guitar.

it's always greed, greed works when things are going well, greed will work again to help things get better.

Decent paying jobs were a dime a dozen here 30 years ago. I made a really nice living as machinist and gigged at night and on weekends. I could quit a job in the morning and have a new and better job by the afternoon. I did that plenty of times. Greed never works except for a chosen few. It's never good for the economy and the blue color working guy.

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Life...... It's sexually transmitted and always fatal

I see greed and ambition as opposite sides of the same coin, motivates one to work, invest, get a good education.

I think you and many others see greed and theft as opposite sides of the same coin. Taking without adding value.

The days of plentiful, unskilled, jobs are over. (gotta edit unskilled, to me a machinist is highly skilled) And any job that can be done 3,000 or more miles from here. Too many people in the rest of the world ready, willing and able to jump in.

I was unemployed for two years, got lucky and have worked for the last 5 or so. I'm well educated and very experienced but age is working against me. We all gotta do the best with what we got

The days of plentiful, skilled labor are over too. Like I said I was a machinist lots of skill involved in my job. Education is fine if you have a profession to be educated for. Our company closed shop and moved down south for cheaper labor, then closed again and moved to Mexico for even cheaper labor.

They used to call what manufacturing that they do today "Dumping". Selling product for less than their true worth by either govt subsidizing or using labor that is paid less than a living wage to lower competition. In other words, slave labor.

Ambition and greed are not even on the same coin in my book. I too am fighting the age issues. I'm 54 years old. I'm thankful I own my business lock, stock and barrel. All my equipment, house and buildings which house my studio. I have no real debt outside of a small student loan. I went back to school just to accomplish something. I played it smart.

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Life...... It's sexually transmitted and always fatal

Indeed you did, supro. I guess I'm one of the few here who's been privileged to have seen your photography work -- it's absolutely outstanding!

(sounds of massive applause......)

Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

The whole down fall started under the clinton adminstration with the repeal of the Glass Steagall act and the minute he signed the bill and investment banks and commercial banks where allowed to join force, even the insurance industry was allowed to get into banking along with other types. Also part of the bill was the Community Reinvestment Act compliance which required these entities to make loans available to those who would not normally be able to get them and if they did not make enough such loans they would no be in compliance. We owe thanks to Bill Clinton signing the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, also known as the "Financial Services Modernization Act" for most of the problems we have today because thats what pulled the trigger. Lots of people made big money and run.

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

It wasn't just the Clinton Administration that was involved. Many, many hands stirred that pot. The Republicans blame the Democrats and the Democrats blame the Republicans. They are all scapegoats for the rich and powerful. This crap is like the X Files. Trust No One.............

All these political and Wall street scumbags knew exactly what they were doing and what the final outcome would be years before it happened. The Bushes have some pretty dirty hands too.

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Life...... It's sexually transmitted and always fatal

+1, They're all scumbags... Mike

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The blues ain't nothin but a good man feelin bad.

Which is why so many economist were against this bill being signed, Glass Steagall kept this in check for the most part. Thats why clinton signed at the end of his administration. His biggest contribution was the Community reinvestment act part which was the worst part of the bill. There is a reason so many people can't get home loans and other loans and for the government to require a banking industry to make such loans was doomed from the start. Every bank had to do a certain percentage of such loans to be allowed to operate. Relaxed regulations everyone was making such loans getting their process and closing fees then selling them off. Clinton forced Fannie and Freddie so far down that road it was inevitable to failure and they kept theres. Don't blame the banks for doing what they were told they had to do.
If I was on wall street I would be one of those scumbags making big money any way the government allows me to. Anyone who says they wouldn't is lying we all want big money.
Gramm-Leach-Bliley (R) + Clinton (D) = Doom to economy begins

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

Congrates 63, you went from a skill that could be outsourced to one that couldn't, and one you probably enjoy even more, we should all be so fortunate. I'd like to go to university to get a music degree, maybe some day.

Glass Steagall, was a big contributing factor, big US banks were banks in name only, they acted like hedge funds and securities brokers. If they acted like banks, and understood what "term" risk is they would have been much better off.

Politicians are too stupid to have knowingly been part of the problem. I actually watched some of the congressional testimony. The politicans haven't a clue what a derivative is so how could they engage in any intelligent dialog with the head of Goldman. The head of Goldman did a poor job as well, he didn't clue on that they didn't have a clue so they ended up talking in two different languages.

The result was 2,000 pages of legislation that does nothing expect kept a bunch of lawyers working to prepare it. Don't you all feel better and confident in the future now that the new financial regulation is in place?

They'll go at it again after the mid terms so you got nothing to worry about, they'll fix everything up real good.

Thats like we have not seen the end of the fee increases people are going to see on credit cards because of the obama rules change. Past only people who did not pay there bills were charged now because of regulation supposed to protect them we all have to pay to make up the lost revenue. Higher fees for those allowed, interest rates, higher minimum payments. All in all it has caused more people to default and made it harder for the credit company to recover there loss.

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

All this garbage is why I'm a registered Libertarian. This country was never supposed to be a two party system and it wasn't founded with God in the picture either. That what scares me about the Republican Party. They tell you the Democrats are erasing your freedoms but the Republicans want to tell you what to do in your private life while letting bid business do whatever they want for a quick buck. They tried to get everyone worked up about abortion issues and !@$ marriage. Two things the government has no business being involved in. I don't really believe in regulation, but I don't believe in government bailouts either. They need to stop giving American Companies big tax breaks for manufacturing products outside the country.

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Life...... It's sexually transmitted and always fatal