Whatever happened to the GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Practices)? What happened to the auditors who were supposed to check the GAAP? What happened to "due diligence"? Evidentially the Wall Street motto is still "Greed Is Good-Ethics Is Bad." Of course there's the age old plan of deregulating all the service industries so the Wall Street wizards could work their derivative magic upon them, thereby turning stability into instability.

What's the matter with Congress? Well, maybe they were too busy raising money for their next election bout to be bothered doing their jobs.

Corporate America, Wall Street, Congress, all the regulatory agencies. that republican administrations (starting with Ronald Reagan) have castrated over the years, led to this debacle.

I don't want any bill passed that doesn't explain why the banks threw out their standard loan practices, and how this new bill rectifies the problem. Why were the rules of GAAP (generally accepted accounting practices) ignored and forgotten, shredded or whatever they did with them?

Why the auditing firms didn't catch this practice and certified their book as OK?

Why were pension funds buying these derivatives when they weren't supposed to under ERISA regulations? Why didn't the SEC and the IRS and the Dept. of Labor not see that? Didn't they learn anything from the Orange County debacle back in 1994, when they went bankrupt from investments in very risky derivatives that the treasurer admitted he knew nothing about. Congress should read: Big Bets Gone Bad: Derivatives and Bankruptcy in Orange County. The Largest Municipal Failure in U.S. History by by Philippe Jorion

I want to know why no one has come up with the idea of going back and reestablish the Glass-Steagall Act and abolish the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act along with the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000?

Evidentially we can't rely on the board of directors of corporations to do their jobs. Which is to look out for the best interests of the shareholders. Something has to be done about that. Multi million dollar salaries, stock options up the ying yang and "golden parachutes" that would entice any CEO to "screw the pooch" and get fired.

The major Wall Street ratings firms played a big, and largely overlooked, role in creating the current economic crisis. Ratings companies are supposed accurately and impartially analyze the books of financial institutions. But they failed to do that. Instead these reckless firms signed off on the health of companies like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Lehman Brothers again and again, much the same way that Enron’s accountants said everything was fine right up to its complete collapse.

I don't want a bill passed until those who looked the other way are not involved in it. Paulson, Bernanke, Greenspan, Gramm etc.

I don't want a bill passed until it can be understood by a twelve year old. How about this for a bill: The Ethical Standards for Corporate America and Wall Street Bill?

Beware the AMERO, it is coming!

The economic tsunami should be no surprise to those who understand how the money masters are forcing their hand in furthering their goal of world domination. First Europe, then the U.S. The march towards world government, run by the financial elite. Without your input. Nice. Black box voting will ensure it stays that way too.

Build it up, crash it, buy it all up. The Rothschilds perfected it after Waterloo, and have repeated it around the world for decades. They and their rich families cohorts are behind this agenda. And we never take the opportunity which is handed to us, that is, to remake our financial system by dismantling the Fed, the IRS and returning the power of the coin to the Congress, and giving the dollar some real value.

We are being sold a bill of goods, and bad debts, and pay for the privilege. And you will like it!

"We are grateful to the Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries."
David Rockefeller Baden-Baden, Germany 1991

A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government." Edward Abbey

It would seem as if two things need to be reintroduced into the study of Economics: A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift, & how greed and lack of regulation caused the Great Depression.

"Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

yup it's a paradigm shift. But there'll be a fight about it. It was shocking to watch Katie Couric define the no vote with almost obscene language. Everyone who makes that kind of money is heavily in the market, and the myopia of self-interested tunnel vision 'business as usual' is at the forefront of nearly all the public people we hear from. Until our economy is based on something more purposeful than greed, ie, is directed to our CommonWealth, instead of personal wealth fragmented and competing etherally with each other, we'll be putting on new bandaides on it forever. The "Invisible Hand" never existed except in a game played with limited participants and beneficiaries in a very rarified and isolated atmosphere.

extraneous copy deleted

It is NOT the end of "Free Market" Capitalism - it is the rebooting of the System

The basic understanding that the term "free market capitalism" actually denoted "unchecked US market access to all world markets with no health, labor or local regulations" has been in the media and blog sphere the entire Clinton and Bush era. None of this is news to the 15% of American citizens who actually use cognitive skills in seeking news.

But the 15% of Americans who respond deeply to Nationalist rhetoric and the 10% of Americans who are wealthy investor-owners have retained a swing vote leverage over the 60% of Americans who vote strictly on Propaganda and 'Our Group' triggers, both of the Left and the Right.

Do you really believe the Captains of Industry and Political Elites didn't see the collapse of Ponzi Scheme loans and investments finally hitting the wall?

The Captains of Industry and Political Elites did see this coming - and it is NOT that they really like the results in some conspiratorial way as much as was that STOPPING the avalanche would entail their denouncing the System that Greed is Good - and THAT would mean the end of the Gravy Train for each and every man and woman on that gravy train. That would be biting the hand that feeds.

YES - we will have a depression, THEN we will have a re-invigorating period of war, and FINALLY we will have that calm after the storm and the ensuing economic "miracle" will do it's race up the mountain to the edge of a cliff again.

Leo Rivers

Cottage Grove OR

deleted