We all know what has got us into this financial mess. Freddie Mac, Wall Street executives, real estate agents, irresponsible individuals buying things out of their income range - it's fun to point fingers at these people, but they are all scapegoats. Pawns. Each one is an opportunist in their own world. If there's a way for each one of these groups to make money or get what they want (a house for example), they will. I guess the same could be said of our politicians.

This problem largely has to do with key decisions made in monetary policy. Those of us bogged down in how deals go down, how to make our next commission, or how sweet of a house we can get forget the role macroeconomics plays in all of this. Alan Greenspan, if nobody recalls, kept lowering interest rates after the demise of the dot-com bubble, effectively helping to inflate the housing bubble. Inflation was also let loose through increasing money supply like it was nobody's business. The Fed ushered in an era of liquidity that also translated to a massive bubble in private equity, hedge funds, and the like. We're finally seeing all of this retract. The funny thing is, passage of the bailout bill is only going to serve as a temporary aid unless we truly recognize that things need to shift in a different direction.

Basically what this all comes down to is that the American Way as we know it now is unsustainable - from highly leveraged housing, equities, and material ownership (I remember the days when a Mercedes actually meant something). What we need is a return to quality - to actually having an edge in production/manufacturing and innovation rather than just relying upon financial engineering.

So regarding Wall Street sharpies, yes, they're smart, but SO WERE the tons of engineers who lost their jobs earlier in the decade. In fact, many engineering graduates ended up settling for wall street careers since then (with higher salaries of course), with the lure of an easier road to 'success.' Just because they're technically proficient and got good grades in school doesn't mean they can overcome industry shifts and get a grip on the forces that dictate their very choice of careers, how/where they live, etc. Wisdom and insight are very different beasts than technical wizardry.