The need for the US financial industry to be bailed out doesn't instil must confidence.

It's not as if this is the first time it's ever happened and probably won't be the last.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1844980,00.html

Profoundly amazing that those excited enough to comment cannot get past the concept that we come into the world buck naked and bereft of any sort of goods whatsoever - then leave the world in more or less exactly the same state. (Not a problem. I send my most dearest away with 'grave goods', but hopefully nothing the funeral director would be incited to filch.)

Forgive me people.
I reached adulthood in the mid 1970s.
I suppose I was fortunate and never had to fight for a roof over my head or for my young family.

Yet I have seen the age of greed and the players in that game attempting to strip even that from those I love.

How might I say it in order to get the message across.

What has been happening in the US these last few days is in result of the collapse of an immense 'Greed machine' that has finally become so completely dishonest and unmanageable that it has spun itself apart.

The banks that folded in the States were not supporting housing for the less advantaged - rather than exploiting the less advantaged for the gain of the principals.
It is well past time that Australians rediscovered virtue within their immediate community, rediscovered their extended familys, worked this way together and DEEP-SIXED the exploiting bastards who have caused us all so much grief for generations - before the same happens here.

Fortunately for us, our banking/finance system does at least operate with a modicum of regulation. The fact that this was lacking in the USofA has been largely the cause of their undoing. There has been no one to "keep the bastards honest". That being said, our own regulator seems to have his work cut out keeping some of our bastards honest too without mentioning any names.

David

There once was an immensely pleasing scenario presented in a 'Science Fiction' offering. It was written by the (unfortunately deceased and much missed) Douglas Adams and featured, amongst other things, a starship populated by the worthless.
I'm reasonably confident thatAdams had created quite a listof utterly useless bastards for the 'faux first flight', including merchant Bankers'.
Why cannot we accept that this is the way it is.
Or in other terms 'confidence tricks' cannot work if the punters have finally worked out that they have sussed out the 'tricks'.

Ludwig, mate, I'm a bit late, but your suggestion about
capitalism needing to be more socialistic as in Sweden and Norway, reminds me of the Keynesian mixed economy which not only helped to save us during the Great Depression, but Keynes' ideas carried on pretty well till the end of the 1970s when the 1920s neo-free-market get big or get out came back in.

Before he died before the end of WW2, Keynes also figured in talks about the future Marshall Plan, giving reminder how he was shut out after WW1 for predicting trouble for treating a beaten Germany so harshly.

Having a good season round Dally' for a change, Ludwig -

Keep up the Good Work, cobber,

Regards, BB, Buntine, WA.

Its a good point Bushbred - our government's management of the economy (in Australia and elsewhere) was arguably a lot better prior to about the 70s.

When I say that it now needs to be more socialistic, what I really mean is that it just needs to be a whole lot more sensible, a bit like the old days before the big-business moguls and the growth-and-short-term-profits-above-all-else dictum really took hold.

.
I've just passed through the northern wheatbelt of WA on my round-the-country trip. It is indeed looking good. Bumper wildflower season too.

cheers