This crisis is about when politicians, and their financial cronies are allowed to play games with government guarantees and regulations. The highly leveraged derivatives were the means to which the crisis was exploited, not the cause. – Unsk

Very late to this post but just to get it out there, I don’t disagree with the general tenor of your position that the interface between government and private capital is a breeding ground for corruption. Two points.

First, the “breeding ground” was tolerated for many years because it greased the wheels – both government and commerce – without too steep a price. The price got decidedly steeper in September 2008 causing a major rethink.

Second, never underestimate the power of the “means”. To claim that Democrats are more inventive at using government to provide opportunities than the (presumably Republican-dominated) financial services sector is at providing the tools is a tough sell. Government might be the snake pit but derivatives are the snake oil.