Bucco, there's plenty of blame to go around looking backwards. Frank and Dodd are just a couple on a long list of self-serving, ideaolgical incompetents who history will prove share the responsibility. Heck, "W" was saying that "the economic fundamentals are strong" more than a year after Frank and Dodd said things were OK.

Maybe after the economy recovers, a long look backward to see what needs to be changed to prevent recurrences might be justified. But right now thinking about the past utilizes thinking time and emotions better used to figure out how to get out of this mess.

Steve, as far as the "global economy" is concerned, there would have been little we could have done to avoid what has happened. It's simple economics. The buy side will flow to the low price -- always. No amount of regulation, tariffs, taxes or protectionism could have prevented it. What can serve as a differentiating factor is a better products. Our car companies found that out, believing that the American public would have unquestioned loyalty to U.S.-made cars, regardless of quality or design. We can't avoid a negative balance of trade.

China and India have sufficiently well-educated work forces willing to work at a fraction of the wages expected by Americans, working within economies where the state makes sure that the factories are built to employ them. So far, the U.S. has been wealthy enough to be able to buy what they produce (creating the negative balance of trade). The real problem occurs when there aren't enough rich countries in the world to buy what all those hard-working Chinese or Indians are producing. Then the economic problem morphs into a political or even military one.

Politicians keep taliking about how the middle class has suffered and what plans they have to reverse that erosion. It's impossible unless the companies that the middle class used to work for design and produce better products at prices competitive with the rest of the world. That's not happening and, if you listen very closely to the politicians, the only solutions they offer is for the unemployed middle class to become entrepreneurs and small business owners.

Unfortunately, Steve, those types of businesses will neither correct our negative imbalance of trade (how do you export "services"?) or re-build the military-industrial complex (unless we can defend ourselves with carpet cleaning services or video game makers). We no longer make steel or other basic metals; our auto industry is on the brink; there are other aircraft companies in the world who make airplanes as good or better than ours at prices as low or lower. I'd say that we need to begin creating companies by working smarter. But then that there's that small problem that our schools aren't anywhere near competitive with those in the developing countries and too few of our kids want to study hard enough to become mathemeticians or scientists. Right now the future for the U.S. economy doesn't look too bright to me.

It's hard to imagine how all those small businesses will be able to sustain or improve the middle class standard of living when the population of the U.S. grows to 400 million by the middle of the century. By then there will be the equivalent of another entire China's worth of people out there in the poor parts of the world, all ready, willing and able to work hard to produce the stuff that Americans can't or won't.

I wonder how we'll pay for all that stuff?