Jay

“The major culprits are the Wall Street funds, the banks that loaned them money printed by the Fed, and the academic economists who concocted false models for the leveraging of bundled assets.”

Indeed. I work very closely with structured products in the financial industry – I agree about the usage of bad models, especially for trying to value CDO’s. I think the CDS problem is also a major problem that needs to be flushed through the system (JP Morgan/Chase having $10 Billion o CDS in Bear, $55 Billion in CDS overall – yikes).

However, outside of Bush not using his veto, what about the democratic congress? They have been shameful in their destructive policies. They need to be held accountable; but, most Americans are not informed. Thus, Schumer can leak a letter claiming that a “run on Indymac bank’ was highly likely, causing a run on indymac bank (someone should check to see if he had short positions). If a Republican did this…

Your point about BHO and the Democrats pushing us into depression. Perhaps it will be good to see what a Democratic president, senate and congress would actually be like.

Except for the fact that we live in dangerous times.