Quite right - the problem is the US regulatory system, and Australians are in a position to wag fingers at the Americans because our financial institutions held up tolerably well. The real problem is making the Americans see sense and fix their system.. In the Australian Federal system the Federal government has considerably more power than it does in the US. To give one example, over there the states and eeven individual cities can impose income taxes. The US President may be the leader of the Western world but his office is subject to so many checks and balances that getting anything done at all is extremely difficult - unless, of course, its a wildly mistaken policy then its easy.

The problem is that the rich and the powerful have an uneven share of the wealth and workers share has been reduced substantially.

Rich people have to do something with all that money and so they have lent (pushed) it to poor people with no hope of paying it back due to the crappy wages they get from these same rich folk, leaving the poor enslaved and in debt and after the foreclosures and bankruptcys the rich end up with an even bigger share of the assets.

How long before we are all bonded to our creditors for life and everything is owned by a few fatcats. Redistribution might be a dirty word but there is no other way to avoid the nightmares of corporatism and fascism. If the environment doesnt get us first.