WHEN OIL PRICES STARTED GOING UP AND UP TO $144 A BARREL AND GAS WAS AT $4 A GAL AND $5 IN SOME PLACES PEOPLE IN SUB PRIME MORTAGES AND SUV AND CUMMUTE OF 40 MILES OR BETTER TO WORK , NOW THEY CAN NOT PAY MORTAGE AND OPEC IS TERRORIST OF THE OIL PIT , OPEC COZ PART OF THE RESSION AND MORTAGE WENT SOUTH COZ PEOPLE ONLY HAVE SO MUCH MONEY TO MAKE A CAR PMT AND HOUSE PMT AND PMT ON THEIR GAS CARD, THE ONLY WAY TO GET THIS ECONOMY MOVEING AGAIN IS GIVE THE PEOPLE A REBATE OF $6000. AND COZ CONGRESS OWES IT TO THE PEOPLE ANYWAY FOR NOT LOOKING OUT FOR US !! COZ THEY WOULD NOT DRILL MORE TO COUNTER OPEC NOT PRODUCTING , YES I AM MAD AT BOTH PARTIES AND THEY NEED TO GET THEIR HAND OUT OF THEIR BUTT!!!!

It's the credit ratings agencies fault. Period. It is actually just that simple. The only people that should be writing about your creditworthiness should be in the public sector. There are right and wrong ways of rating risk, and there is no right way that involves private gain. The gatekeepers at Arthur Anderson were held accountable for the misdeeds at Enron, so why are we giving preferential treatment to Moody's and Standard and Poors? None of this could have happened without those triple A ratings.

General Short and Admiral Kimmel were both demoted to their permanent ranks and retired for failing to show superior judgement as CINC-Hawaii and CINC-PAC respectively. Why don't we longer expect superior judgement from flag officiers, aren't Chairmen, CEOs, Cabinet and Board Members flag officers???

The foundation for the financial crisis was started decades ago among several pedestals to our socio-economic system:

1) Political system that has become slanted to vested interests that prejudices entrenched power/capital flows. This favors state sanctioned monopolies or monopolistic sectors including the medical establishment. And it discourages long-range investment in future technologies, infrastructure and modes of government and business.
2) What has become the almost universally accepted academic treatise of business management, particularly MBA programs, is to 'maximize profits for the short-mid term rather than focus on long term investment. Coinciding with this has been the growth of self-indulgence on the part of management. The combination of several factors has led to exploded rewards for management that exploits short term sales or M&A gains that result in higher stock prices.
3) Our system has become addicted to growth without balance: the theme was set as a result of WWII expansion and accelerated as China, Russia, India and other emerging regions were used to expand our markets and capital dumping grounds. The dependence on growth has long been unsustainable because of limitations of natural resources and, ignored until recently, humanity threatening environmental impacts.

Thomas Malthus may once and for all have his theories proven as a consequence of exponential mechanization of the means of both production and consumption into expanded markets. But the problem has become there being no new frontiers to expand into that are able to inflate the bubble one more time.

These and additional trends could be explored: it boils down to the fact the economy must contract because it has run out of room to expand or currently available means to increase productivity using fewer resources.

The way forward is posed with many challenges that require a bottom's up reassessment and then pursuit of technologies, business methods, and government cooperation that breaks through current limitations.

Perhaps the depth of the current crisis will prove to have been averted.. but only to find that has allowed avoidance of needed fundamental changes.