"The free market-created financial crisis"

Yeah, because the Federal Reserve had absolutely NO role in causing this bubble in the first place. All that money they were printing up to keep interest rates low didn't do a thing.

Mr. Lazzaro has a teaching job? We are so screwed!

We could still hope for the better. Things now are turning favorable. Thanks for sharing your post. By the way, I know a great Kentucky home that might interest you too. Thanks.

But you claim to be a capitalist don't you Mr. Lazzaro?

How can you claim to be so when you support a market where a small collective controls the direction and opportunity of it.

Market absolutism is the correct philosophy, but under a true free market. One without a stock exchange. The stock exchange by nature flies in the face of market absolutism because it only breeds corruption and places value on what may be instead of what is. In order to participate in the market you must give up individual control. Your corporation is no longer yours. It belongs to a collective. Collective control doesn't sound like market absolutism does it?

A true market is one that is controlled completely by private interest and pure supply and demand. It relies on as many people as possible being part of the system and total diversity of ownership. This is the only check against corruption. A single corrupted individual can not harm the market because he can not gain enough control over it. Only when a society is specialized to the individual can it prosper. Once a collective takes control of this diversity the free market is lost. It is lost because the individual loses purpose and in so doing loses value.

When an individual loses value and transfers it to the collective we end up with a collective will that determines the value of the individual. Invariably the collective will place less value on that individual than he would place on himself.

When you say it takes years or decades to confirm economic trends you are partially right. You can't confirm something until it becomes fact and to become fact it must become history. The problem with that premise is that history is often times not fact, but the opinion of the person writing the history. As they say, to the victor goes the spoils. 20 years from now the chapter of this decade will probably downplay the role Wall Street and the government played in this collapse. That is if your side wins the fight. The collapse will be blamed on the free market and the people who bought too much that they couldn't afford. It will be blamed on the individual, not the collective that manipulated them.

The corruption will be wiped from the page. This needs to be done so the next generation can be fooled by the collective as well. We are already hearing how the stimulus has worked and the recession is over. We are hearing how Obama the savior and Paulson averted the crisis. They are to be cheered, they are to be praised.

But you are wrong that you can't see a long term trend while you are in it. We do have real history to look at. It is just harder to find over the glossed over common presentation. The long term trend is down. If you actually had to live the life of a common person you would see this. We have had five downturns in 30 years, each time the majority comes back weaker. The only way to stimulate growth is to create more debt.

Answer me this question, how can the growth of debt be seen as the growth of prosperity?

How can the loss of individual freedom lead to greater opportunity?

How can the transfer of responsibility give me more choice?

Joe...

1) The free market is not and never has been.

2) "...another structural problem in the United States: resource allocation and the impact of greed, as well as public policy proposals to address each."

A public policy regarding greed? Greed often leads to excess and that is the root of the problem. However, the public and the government has demonstrated equal levels of greed.

This is like trying to curb fear, or love, or doubt....hmm, is that possible?

3) Perhaps markets need pressure relief safety valves when they expand too fast, like any other high pressure device needs to release excess pressure before it blows. This past year and the years leading up to it reduced the valve checks so we did not learn until it was too late that they were all gummed up.

I think this post needs a follow-up so you can expand upon or clarify some of your ideas.