"Don't get me wrong - I think both parties bear responsibility for the mess. Both parties allowed a shadow banking system to develop that created all these exotic mortgage instruments that made a lot of people a lot of money but avoided the regulatory constraints placed on banks. Both parties, pressured by lobbyists, failed to rein in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac despite years of warnings. But a president must take the lead on some issues, and this has been a fundamentally deregulatory administration headed by a man who wanted to push retirees to put some of their Social Security savings into the stock market. (Remember when Enron was going to lead to lasting reform?)"
and
"So, what is going on? How did we get into this mess, and how will we get out? It is clear to any detached observer that the travails on Wall Street are not simply a superficial kink in the circulation of the nation’s money supply. There are deep-seated problems here that will impede growth, and accelerate business failures and job losses if not objectively identified and forcefully addressed. While we have recklessly disregarded the need for prudent supervision of our banking and financial systems, the real problem is even deeper. For eight years we have papered over the fact that American consumers do not have the purchasing power to sustain economic expansion."
