An Eye Opener

... for those who want a single villain in the economic meltdown. First, there is this tidbit from Reason Hit & Run:

As European stock markets tank, the Irish government guarantees bank deposits, the Benelux countries nationalize Fortis bank, Germany bails out Hypo Real Estate Holdings, and Denmark also guarantees bank deposits and dismally so forth, the question arises: Who knew that Europe, of all places, was so under-regulated? Or maybe de-regulation is not the chief cause for the outbreak of financial chaos? Just wondering.

Then there is this comment from Mr. Nice Guy in that same post:

Err, I hate to, err, point this out, but, ahem, um, doesn't this argument turn around the other way?

I mean, you can't blame government intervention for the mess if nations of varying levels of government intervention are suffering the same problems...

This is why I love the blogs. There's a lot of wisdom out there to be had. This problem was a combination of the two issues. First, the government and quasi-government entities decided to engage in social engineering and bought up loans given to any idiot who could hold a pen. Then we allowed some of the larger brokerage houses to run wild.

Had the Republicans been in control of Congress, we would have had a different pack of hateful cretins celebrating their combined shafting of the public and siezure of our wallets. As it is, we have to put up with end zone dances from the likes of Barney Frank, who was one of the chief architects of the social engineering portion of this disaster.