>>>>Without the government actions, which indeed will have to be paid by the citizens, things are even worse, american dream or not.
>>>
>>>Because of previous government actions, which are now being paid by the citizens, things are much worse. With the new government actions, which will be paid by the citizens, things will be even worse...delayed, but worse.
>>
>>Please explain... Here in europe, much has done to prevent banks falling. Because of the stock market and it negative sentiment some normally healthy banks were in trouble because clients ran away out of fear the bank would fall over. The government took action to assure those banks still could operate. The injection in european banks is many times bigger than the us did.
>>
>>The alternative would be that normal citizens would lose their savings and small to large companies would go broke because their bank went down. This would leave Joe Doe with the bill which would be much worse than the govermental actions in safegarding those banks. How would you feel to see you company, which you worked upon your whole life, go down because of this? If you believe this is the responsibility of the individual, don't you think the government should not guarantee 100.000 dollar when a bank goes down?
>>
>>I know that most americans are against spending tax dollars on anything except their own matters. The sentiment up here is that that this extreme version american of american capitalism is dead because of the greed of the very few. Time will learn.
>>
>
>The sub prime meltdown at the heart of the current financial mess is the direct result of regulation changes enforced by the government which made sound and time-tested lending practices illegal. The problem was compounded by a regulation change which allowed these new mortgages to be bundled and sold as a security. As such the lenders had no stake in the validity of the loans. Hence the greed, corruption, bubble and meltdown.

As you and I know it is multifactorial, not only caused by the regulations, but also by de-regulations and the lack of regulation. Its a perfect example of where the government failed big time. If the US government really wanted to make houses affordable to the US citizens it should have regulated the financing side of it. Though it partially did by having special arrangements with fannie mae and freddy mac, it failed to regulate how it should be financially backed up.

A nice summary, you can find here http://www.moneyweb.co.za/mw/view/mw/en/page662?oid=231125&sn=Blog%20detail%20back%20button

I find it somewhat stunning that a republican president in a republican congress just worked out a socialistic plan to let every american citizen to own a house (Even our leftish democratic government would never propose something like this). I did not hear any republican publically say that would be a wrong thing.

Of course, now the financial buble busted, you'll hear the complaint that the tax payer should not pay for the results. So since, you did not answer my question, I'll ask you again.

Do you really choose not to use tax money trying to resolve the financial crisis and let one bank fall after another, leaving millions of americans and american companies with empty hands, financially broke for something totally out of their control ? If so, I wonder whether you really realise the impact of this crisis to the american economy and its citizen.

Also, do you still beleive that reducing the regulations would make things better rather than worse? Would there be less greed ?

>Investors do not concern themselves with the short term, gamblers do.

Sorry, but I don't see the difference. Short term or long term, you still don't know whether you'll get your money out of it.
>
>>>Don't take my word for it, just ask the Oracle.
>>>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/opinion/17buffett.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin