Clovis - I understand your frustration but I also know that it wasn't only the GOP that got us into this financial mess. Clinton started the deregulation of the banking industry which ulitmately led us to this point. Yes - the GOP could have reigned in the madness as anyone with a brain could have saw where this was heading several years back. In fact as a Realtor - I did notice how loose families were with their borrowing, fudging information so they could leverage themselves the maximum amount of money to buy a house, putting themselves into 80/20 ARMS, ARM's, fized mortgages w/o reading the fine print - it was a frenzy that can equally be blamed on the lenders and borrowers. A democratic congress could have checked FREDDIE MAC and FANNY MAE a could of yrs back. The GOP congress could have not allowed leveraging assets at the ratios that THEY did. Allan Greenspan most certainly saw this coming and assumed/hoped he would have been out of the public eye before it all caught up with him.
HUBRIS more than anything - by either party, by the banks, by the lenders led to this. This idea that there is such a thing as a friendly free market that magically moves along and is beneficial to anyone who competes in it is ridiculous - w/o strict oversight - all you get w/o regulation is the wealthy corporations and big business setting rules and buying influence. Not everything in this capitalist society (so-called) should be available for purchase. People, business wants deregulation up until the market tanks THEN they want the government to bail them out - sounds fishy to me.
People pride themselves on this outmoded, outdated, cold war philosophy of us against the commies/socialists but don't even realize that they are turning to those same principles when they need a handout and when their own precious ideals have put their backs to the wall. I hear this at all levels of society - not just the upper crust. It's frustrating when people will defend a way of living when it doesn't even include them, nor does it ever plan to. For this free-market to continue to exist, we will always need the haves (them) and the have-nots (us). It's this idea that someday they will be able to have that causes poor angry people to defend the rights of the wealthy and helps strengthen the GOP position and continue us down the path to financial ruin.