Quote:
Originally Posted by Crafty Angler
What we are seeing now - or what is coming to light - is just a latter day version of that sort of ruthless greed and arrogance at it's very worst.
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Crafty, I know we dont agree on much, so it should come at no suprise that I disagree stongly with this. The very root of the problem today is that we, all Americans, lived to high on too much credit. Its too easy to blame arrogance and greed. This was not a top down problem, but a bottom up one. The greed in our situation was due to a hunger, by consumers, both at the indivudual and corporate level, for cheap cash based on US home values. While some fortunes may have been made, for the most part, the American consumer was benefitting from this and investors wanted what was incorrectly classified as a safe investment.
If we come away from this crisis demonizing Wall Street and other corporations, we will miss the real lesson to be learned by this. That lesson is that not everyone can afford a house, not everyone can have a SUV, not everyone can have a 50" tv. We need to earn, before we can spend.