Totally agree with this sentiment. If I was to go belly-up over my own ill-advised financial decisions, I wouldn't look to blame anyone. I would suck it up and move on.

It does indeed seem as if the mob is looking to lynch somebody, anybody, if it keeps us from addressing our own bad behavior. That's not to say we shouldn't be crushing some gold-plated pee-pees along the way, but in terms of the "public" spending (not to mention time) required to unravel and repair this disaster, Americans need to understand the multi-dimensional nature of the mess.

The average voter really does need to grow up (and get informed) in a hurry if we want our system of government to finally work right.

I suppose I side with Jefferson on this one

The tree of liberty grows only when watered by the blood of tyrants

The bankers have taken captive our economy and our looting our treasury, if a few innocents go down with that tyranny it is a price we should be willing to pay. Democracy is never a perfectly tidy.

Not to mention that
IMF experts like Simon Johnson argue the same principle that elites must purged before the system works again.

Well, if you want to call it "aiding and abetting the enemy," he's not alone:

No Return to Normal
Why the economic crisis, and its solution,
are bigger than you think.

By James K. Galbraith

...The president has an economic program. But there is, so far, no clear statement of the thinking behind that program, and there may not be one, until the first report of the new Council of Economic Advisers appears next year. We therefore resort to what we know about the economists: the chair of the National Economic Council, Lawrence Summers; the CEA chair, Christina Romer; the budget director, Peter Orszag; and their titular head, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. This is plainly a capable, close-knit group, acting with energy and commitment. Deficiencies of their program cannot, therefore, be blamed on incompetence. Rather, if deficiencies exist, they probably result from their shared background and creed—in short, from the limitations of their ideas.....

Third, the initial package was affected by the new team’s desire to get past this crisis and to return to the familiar problems of their past lives. For these protégés of Robert Rubin, veterans in several cases of Rubin’s Hamilton Project, a key preconception has always been the budget deficit and what they call the "entitlement problem." This is D.C.-speak for rolling back Social Security and Medicare, opening new markets for fund managers and private insurers, behind a wave of budget babble about "long-term deficits" and "unfunded liabilities." To this our new president is not immune. Even before the inauguration Obama was moved to commit to "entitlement reform," and on February 23 he convened what he called a "fiscal responsibility summit." The idea took hold that after two years or so of big spending, the return to normal would be under way, and the costs of fiscal relief and infrastructure improvement might be recouped, in part by taking a pound of flesh from the incomes and health care of the old.

The chance of a return to normal depends, in turn, on the banking strategy. To Obama’s economists a "normal" economy is led and guided by private banks....

The most likely scenario, should the Geithner plan go through, is a combination of looting, fraud, and a renewed speculation in volatile commodity markets such as oil. Ultimately the losses fall on the public anyway, since deposits are largely insured. There is no chance that the banks will simply resume normal long-term lending. To whom would they lend? For what? Against what collateral? And if banks are recapitalized without changing their management, why should we expect them to change the behavior that caused the insolvency in the first place?....

I've read most of Krugman's columns and find people who think Krugman's criticism of Obama is personal just have it wrong, I think that's silly. During the Democratic primary his opinion was mainly spurred by Obama's health care plan. Krugman has always been a vehement pusher of the idea that health insurance reform was highly important to the economy. And it was clear he feared Obama's very meek approach, combined with his list of economic advisers, was a sign of possible trouble with Obama's general approach for those with liberal agendas, like Galbraith now.

I myself have somewhat of a tendency to be centrist on many economic issues and am skeptical with their bent. But I am glad they are speaking out so I myself have a better spread of opinion to judge what the Obama adminisration is attempting, how their general approach reads to liberal thinkers. Certainly the simplistic agitprop offered by most conservative Republicans in response to the administration is of no help to me in that regard, it's really too bad we don't have a legitimate right to offer alternatives and challenges, but at least we have some responsible on the left to do the same.

P.S. I also think those who thought Krugman was a Hillary "fan" got his complaints totally wrong. They were looking at his criticisms of Obama through their own lens of the silly "bread and circuses" distractions of rooting for one Dem candidate over the other. Krugman was concerned about agitating on forthcoming policy of the Dem candidate, whoever that might be, he was concerned with issues and not personality horse race. He simply saw a few more liberal glints in Hillary's proposals than in Obama's in comparing two very centrist candidates. If he was trying to do anything to Obama during the primary period, he was trying to influence him to reconsider some of his proposed policies.