Well, everyone else is talking about it, why shouldn't I?
Once again I feel we are experiencing the true legacy of Ronald Reagan. Reagan convinced everyone that government was the enemy, and regulations were just handcuffing the creative and entrepreneurial forces of the American people. The market was rational; bad players and corrupt practices would be weeded out by the the power of market based control.
Are we de-regulated enough yet?
I also place a lot of this on peoples unconstrained greed. Everybody thought it was great when speculative bubble after bubble arose and Wall street guys were making multi-million bonuses for doing things none of understood (derivative "swaptions" what the hell are those things).
Nobody was calling for regulation while the party was going and Joe Homeowner was refinancing his house and spending the money like it was free. Nobody was calling for corporate oversight until the market crashed and it was obvious that crooks like the guys at Enron were running the show at some major corporations.
The only way regulation can work is for people to realize that to prevent the bad times the good times have to be tempered as well. You cannot have these market run ups and esoteric financial products that appear to make you rich and expect to regulate them after the fact.
I'm not sure what people want is a more disciplined economy. I think most people want the bad stuff to go away and what they really want is another bubble.
Just like the old Texas bumper sticker: "Please God, give us just one more oil boom, and we promise not to screw it up this time".
