>>And how was all this possible? Simple, the New Deal and all of that regulation was there to prevent the bubble-burst-crisis-bubble cycle which is inherent to unregulated capitalism. Now since the 80s they insist on deregulation - and we're pushed back 70 years.
>>
>>It could well be 1984 and 1929 rolled into one.
>
>If only it were 1917 again, eh, comrade? <g>

I'd rather not. No matter how I'd like to see a good workable implementation of socialism, the very nature of capitalism prevents that (IOW, these guys have got such a pile of money, and are so trigger happy that there's no theory they'd get their hands off the loot without a fight).

So the nature of the beast is that any new attempt at socialism, in any form, would have to fight its way to the surface - and that very fact would change its nature again. Instead of being of the people for the people by the people (sounds familiar, eh?), it would be yet another military hierarchy, and yet another set of masters - I somehow can't imagine the guys who were fighting ceding power to civilians easily. And then there'd be the need to defend the new order (which is historically true without exception - was there ever a communist country which was just left alone?).

Therefore, I'd rather see capitalism fixed, or just mended back into usable state, so to avoid the futile bloodshed. Because despite all the technology, brainwashing and tumbledrying, not all the people are stupid all the time, and will get sufficiently PO'd at some point - which is exactly when I plan not to be here. It's just a matter of knowing when, which is the part I haven't perfected yet ;). By then, I only hope it'd be the masses wanting to take their country back, not some fundamentalist lunatics of any color, who wouldn't bother about ideology any more than suffices to organize a lynch mob.

>You're certainly right about some of the wacky new financial instruments. Even Robert Rubin, the former Secretary of the Treasury and before that head of one of the investment houses, said he doesn't fully understand them.

Charles Stross predicts a very dire future once the Singularity comes (i.e. the moment when artificial intelligence becomes faster than human one), the plague which will doom the intergalactic trade and communication in general would be intelligent financial instruments gone wild. Universe is populated by scams in search of victims.