interesting point of view. Yet the age of wealth concentration and debt distribution continues.

18? In college? Great how about a 10,000$ limit?
Here you go...

I know a lot of kids who were given cards like that. Morally reprehensible.

In order to prevent themselves from dropping out of the middle-class, families and individuals have sort of "papered over" their lack of rising wages with Credit Card debt.

Yes, groceries, health insurance, heating oil, lifes little emergencies. Thing is, those "emergencies" seem to have increased in price by 200-400%. Of course, our increased productivity means that we are working longer and harder for less and less. People are tired, and don't think as clearly in those circumstances, they just know that the kid needs new shoes, because the little angels are too small and have holes besides... (poor quality chinese shoes, too bad)

How did we get here?

Great blog, Wade. Rec'd.

I find I'm torn up about this stuff. I agree 100% that the whole financial monster has grown out of control, and that those most responsible - who entered into that industry and held positions at various higher levels and KNEW and justified to themselves this kind of immoral and often ILLEGAL activity - should be prosecuted, and their ill-gotten personal stashes confiscated.

But there's more levels of this story to come. I've had the pleasure of delving fairly deeply into a series of industries - electricity, oil & gas, waste management, automaking, forestry, housing, "agribusiness," etc. And what did I see? The same kind of rot. Immoral, and often directly deceptive, even illegal practices.

e.g. The ferocious lying the forestry companies did about their clearcutting practices. Nuclear & coal. Oil & gas. The automakers lobbied like furies against CAFE standards, lied like hell, because they wanted to sell more tin and chrome to people in SUVs, so they'd make more profit. In housing, from land developers through getting zoning approvals to purchasing materials to onsite construction practices right through sales (and then finance) - immorality and illegality was rife. So you have, at the base of every primary/extractive and manufacturing industry, not just the occasional lie, but systemic deception.

Now move another notch, to that great growth industry - communications, marketing, advertising. Each of those firms worked to tart the shit produced into fancy packages. And the people involved very often KNEW what the game/lie was, because the ads were often spun to defend against groups attacking them, or to soothe consumer qualms. Same with retail. Rot from products sourced overseas to labor standards to deceptive pricing to getting permission to build.

Then government. Not just the financial regulators, but food... drugs... safety... labor standards... environment. Plus all those industry analysts. And all the admin-types and tax people, who accepted hundreds and hundreds of dirty deals.

And the politicians knew.

And all of these people talked to the media.

This is without once putting any responsibility on consumers (SOME at least of whom knew they shouldn't be such greedheads, as they bought their 4rd car or various of those fabulous luxury items we've been inundated with these past decades.) And then, the voters. Politicians who voted against tax cuts - or spoke against them, like Mondale - whatever happened to them? And our media watching habits? We knew the news and the media lied, and we watched their channels anyway.

What I'm saying is that YES, some people were more responsible. And some big chunk of that group SHOULD be prosecuted.

But. Be Obama for a minute. Think about how he's handling this, and HAS to handle this. He knows this economic storm is gonna take out millions of jobs, dozens and dozens of major firms. He's got those numbers. He also knows damn well that a lot of them are going to turn out to have been run by lying, thieving, morons. As in automaking. But since he knows the rot ran right across our economic lives... through finance to production and consumption and bleeding right into our culture, our media and our democratic practices... what should he do?

What I hear him saying is that the worst excesses and most responsibility lay at the top... and must be brought to justice or reined in or whatever. But also, each time he tells us that too many of US bought in, in too many ways.

And he's NOT just doing this for political reasons. He's doing this because, as these jobs and firms and sectors things fall, we have to very quickly find ways to rebuild, restructure, root out the worst and get going on the good. We could very easily be in for a decade where consumption could be down by 10%-20%.

People think it's about "economic growth" and "rising GDP." But this hides some real problems. Even if that reverses itself, we are gonna have to take at least 5% of out income that we were formerly spending, and turn it into savings. PLUS another 5% of GDP that we'll have to produce, but can no longer consume, but must send overseas to balance our trade deficit out. PLUS X% to start paying down the deficits we're gonna have to run.

So he not only needs to right the economic ship... stop and reverse the money virus that ran amuk... prosecute the guilty... refound each of these industries... BUT DO THIS WHILE TELLING HIS ENTIRE NATION that they all cut consumption by 10%-20% to pay down their own debt, taxes, and the trade balance. with no more papering over things with crappy lying debt and credit cards or home equity withdrawals or quick kills on the stock market.

If credit was a con - and it was - and only provided an addict's fix to deeper problems of income distribution and such... then the problem isn't just jailing the conmen... it's how to live with the addiction removed.

In the past, a business or hospital ran a risk that their customers may not be able to pay. If we knew the car repair shop owner, this wasn't a big deal. We'd pay eventually; we were good for it.

In the past, businesses required retail customers to pay in cash or by check. They might extend credit to business customers, but had to be really careful. Businesses failed when they had to write off too many uncollectable receivables.

I have never met a person who was forced to take a credit card against their will. Maybe I don't know the right people.

Oh, I forgot how everyone here was complaining during the primaries how stupid Americans are.

It all makes sense now.

Kick your credit cards to the curb: pay them off.

So, WaMu, Countrywide, etc., are as bad as a cigarette company that knowingly pushed toxic, addictive poisons to our children?

This goes too far for me.

You passingly mention "personal responsiblity", and that's a shame.

As the old saying goes, you can lead a horse to water.....