Here's the clear Blame Hierarchy: Individuals, Mortgage Brokers, Fannie and Freddie, Wall Street, Congress and the President. Each subsequent party ignored reality along the way, but the problem starts with the individual. You took out a loan you could not afford. I am sorry if you didn't read the contract, or get counsel on the contract. But we live in an adult country, not the infantilism of Europe. This is why we are free to innovate, free to fail, free to get back up without a Big Nanny in DC telling us what we can and cannot do. This is why so many Europeans yearn to make a new start in America. They are sick and tired of the initiative-stifling over-regulation on the continent. One of the greatest aspects of America is its firm belief in individual responsibility. When we ease the repercussions of bad actions (whether on the part of Wall Street or Main Street, corporate America or small business America), we destroy the foundation of self-reliance upon which this nation is built. Don't confuse candidates with true American principles of self-reliance. McCain is not perfect. But he is a far cry from the paternalism of Obama, Biden, and Bush.

You are playing the same old race-baiting game. I said "economic minorities." Blame starts with the individual. No one was FORCED into taking out a loan they could not afford. We are not victims of Persuasion. We live in a rhetorical universe. It is our duty to accrue the critical thinking skills to keep ourselves from being bamboozled. Does Big Tobacco FORCE anyone to smoke a cigarette? No. Does anyone FORCE anyone to overreat junk food for thirty years, shoot dope, or buy high-risk stocks? No, no, and no. Yes, we should demand that industry disclose the side effects of their products and services. But it is our responsibility to heed that information.

Being independent means an ability to simultaneously contain conflicting thoughts in one's brain (e.g., Sarah Palin is a Complete Doofus AND She Is In Synch with A Huge Body of Doofus Americans). The future of politics in America is post-partisan. Independent thinkers are the Middle Way. They are the personification of Hegelian synthesis. The answer is neither Lincoln nor Rand, but both. Pragmatism is America's greatest philosophical contribution to the world. It's time we got back to it. Because government intervention is sometimes necessary in instances of grotesque injustice (Central High in Little Rock) does not mean that government is the answer to all that ails us. We need less government, more self-reliance, less blame, more discipline. Government should not bail fully functional citizens out for their obesity, smoking, willful ignorance, or risky financial decisions. Government should be the savior of last resort, not the first. On these points I am certain that both Lincoln and Rand would agree.

Nothing is fair in this life. It's not the job of government to make life fair. It's the job of government to entertain us.

Obama Girl.

That's like Sarah Palin lamely bringing up the spectre of William Ayers. McCain has acknowledged the blunder of dealing with Keating. He publicly excoriated himself for this. Bigger fish to fry.

Here's an interesting snippet from FactCheck.org: It's true that key Democrats opposed the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, which would have established a single, independent regulatory body with jurisdiction over Fannie and Freddie – a move that the Government Accountability Office had recommended in a 2004 report. Current House Banking Committee chairman Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts opposed legislation to reorganize oversight in 2000 (when Clinton was still president), 2003 and 2004, saying of the 2000 legislation that concern about Fannie and Freddie was "overblown." Just last summer, Senate Banking Committee chairman Chris Dodd called a Bush proposal for an independent agency to regulate the two entities "ill-advised."

1. This credit default swap argument is straight from the Obama campaign talking points. I am seeing it everywhere from people who didn't know what a CDS was two weeks ago. Ditto for the bashing of Gramm. In any case, my pieces have made clear that blame goes everywhere. We can all agree on that. My unique selling point is that no one talks about the fact that the blame should START with the individual. 2. I have bashed Palin from here to the Aleutian Islands. Choosing her was a mistake. McCain would have preferred to pick Lieberman or another maverick like himself. But because we live in a two-party nation, horrific compromises have to be made in the interest of motivating the base. The reason Biden was such an easy fit for Obama is because Obama's policies are straight from the traditional Democratic playbook. Obama is a tax-and-spend liberal. So is Joe. So are about 10 other worthy candidates Obama could have picked. McCain is a completely different animal. He's an independent trying to make his way in a two-party system. I shake my head at the GOP base. But I don't fear them. I talk about my position on abortion in my pieces re: the war on science. Diehard conservatives have science on their side for once when it comes to abortion. ON almost every other issue they do not. I agree with Buffett on the need for extreme population control, on private investment in public education, and that there needs to be some kind of solution to the current mess. But I disagree fundamentally on the need for a bailout. Wall Street and Main Street need to feel the pain of failing to perform due diligence. The rescue package obviates that introspection.

Here's one answer to high health insurance premiums, Bev (I pay them too): A. Reward people for taking care of themselves. You pay LESS insurance if you stop smoking, if you get your cholesterol down, plus other benchmarks. We need to activate the preventative streak in people. Some insurance companies are already starting with this strategy (I want to switch to a company that does this). The point of health insurance is to cover EXTREME health emergencies. We all want to pay less. And we can pay less if we were rewarded for taking better care of ourselves. B. Illegal immigration. Nobody wants to talk about it. But the costs of health care have skyrocketed because illegal immigrants use emergency rooms as their primary care. It's stupid and it's nuts. We need to get a handle on the illegal immigrant problem or these costs are only going higher. C. The most important tax in terms of what you actually pay at the pump, at the grocery store, just about anywhere, is CAPITAL GAINS. Those kinds of taxes get passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices. Obama wants to raise them. I can't speak to the specific tax you refer to above, but, I can assure you, the NET amount you pay out in terms of either prices or higher taxes or both, will NOT go down under Obama. He has to pay for his programs somehow. That money has to come from somewhere.

Government is a referee. Sports is a tired trope in political discussions, but here I go anyway. One of the frequent refrains one hears from basketball coaches, players, and the viewing public is this: "Let Them Play the Game." When a ref calls too many calls, it slows the game down, the players become hesitant, less INNOVATIVE, less productive. It is indeed the perfect analogy for business. Overregulated economies are overly cautious. You would NOT have had the amazing innovations we ALL enjoy, including Google, powerful PDAs, Craigs List, the kind of software that allows the discussion we are now having on this very site, WITHOUT free and open markets. No one would take the risk. Period. We are in grave danger of losing our competitive edge as a nation, if we TAKE THE WRONG LESSON from this crisis. The problem is NOT with securitized risk. The innovative ways that Wall Street packages risk is what sets it apart from almost every market on planet earth. Wall Street's much-maligned derivative culture is, in fact, the envy of the world. The problem, as with most problems in America, is with indulgence of stupidity and the bailout of risk. Starting with the individual. As I make clear in this article, EVERYONE in government is guilty here. Everyone. Republicans, Democrats, independents. Everyone stood to gain by giving a loan to anyone who wanted one. This is the back side of our innovative market system. Sometimes there are bubbles born from insufficient DUE DILIGENCE from all sectors, not just from the government. But I can live with these bubbles IF, and only IF, we do NOT bail out the players when they fail. THIS is my beef with the current bailout. I do not buy the Chicken Little scenario pushed by Democrats and Republicans. I do not buy the NEED for wholesale government intervention into the economy. McCain is as much to blame here as Obama. I think we as a nation need to GROW UP and learn that as adults we need to face the consequences of our actions. The consequence of NOT bailing out Wall Street and Main Street would, yes, be an extreme tightening of credit. For a short duration. But, guess what, other actors would enter the vacuum. Foreign banks, nontraditional lenders, and private equity (see Buffett's investment in Goldman Sachs). We are SO deathly afraid of a little pain in this country, we end up artificially buttressing a sector (the housing market in this case) that needs to seriously deflate. DON'T YOU THINK IT'S POSITIVELY INSANE that a crappy 1BR condo in Manhattan sells for $950,000? C'mon. Shouldn't that 1 BR really sell for $400,000 or less? Yes! If we let the housing market return to normal levels, we could buy that 1BR at a fair price. But not if we bail out the housing lenders. We didn't BAIL out Webvan in 2001. Why the heck are we bailing out overextended mortgage backers today? The dotcom bubble busted, LOTS of companies imploded, and out of the rubble emerged some very strong players, including Apple, Google, and many more. I see no problem with this. If you want a paternalistic government, go live in Europe or South America. But if you want to live free, if you are a big boy or big girl and can pick yourself up when you fail, then by God live in America.

Woody, I have already made clear my distaste for Palin and why McCain's choice of this incompetent person killed his chances of winning the election. That debate is over. Almost everyone reading CFR agrees that Wasilla Sarah is not up to the job. STILL ... even though she's clearly no Fox (in the political sense), she's possibly a Hedgehog. And if she and McCain would put the discussion back on the question of personal responsibility versus the Nanny State, they have a shot (a long shot, but a shot). Because Americans ARE VERY UNHAPPY with the bailout. They are about a bailout of corporations and are unhappy about a bailout for unsavory or benighted borrowers. The market will clear the junk out of the market, if we just get out of the way. But no party wants do to that in an election year. That's the Dinosaur thinking going on, not Sarah's Creationist bunk.

With all due compassion for your health situation, Beverly, let's get clear. I advocate a version of the Hillary Clinton plan, which MANDATES health insurance. This means the solution stays in the private sector, with tax incentives for employers who choose to give health care as an employee benefit. INDIVIDUALS, not companies, not the government, are required to get health insurance with my plan. And they could enjoy tax breaks for doing so. 2. If you do not buy health insurance, you are in violation of the law. It's as simple as that. Akin to mandatory car insurance. 3. If you can prove you cannot afford to buy your own insurance, you can receive financial assistance, but you still must buy it. It may mean shifting priorities in one's life, but, hey, people find a way to buy car insurance. This won't solve the health care problem for ALL Americans, but it will significantly decrease the number of uninsured without creating a fed bureaucracy. "Luck of the draw" is misleading. It's well-documented that women can do several things to significantly reduce their risk of breast cancer: reduce alcohol consumption, exercise, and maintain healthy body weight among other preventative measures. Genetics definitely plays a role, as it does in many health issues. But there's a lot one can do to forestall predisposed conditions. You and others like you should be financially rewarded for taking charge of your preventative health. And my mandatory insurance plan would mandate that insurance companies lower rates for individuals who meet certain benchmarks. This way we are not blaming people for their lifestyles, but we are certainly financially rewarding them for adopting healthier ones. Under my plan, no one can be denied health insurance, regardless of previous conditions or lifestyle. No one. Because this will prove costly to health insurers, it's paramount that they be allowed to adjust rates based on key benchmarks of preventative health care (e.g. stopping smoking, ability to maintain a certain aerobic heart rate while running, and so on). We will find unbiased ways to measure these things. In fact, they already exist.

McCain and Palin are grossly imperfect. Obama is smarter, as Democrats usually are. But what consistently amazes me about some Republicans is there ability to get a few big things right. A few big principles. While getting hundreds of other issues dead wrong. In this case the principle at stake here is this: the role of government. What role should government play in many areas of our lives? It's a question. Hopefully folks don't go off the deep end as others recently did and, thus, had to be removed.

I am just one of those stupid Nebraskan cornhuskers that believes that the first place we should look to solve problems is inside. NOT that there aren't external factors. And, if you read what I say in many pieces, there's a lot that needs to be addressed on the outside too. But I think as a nation all of us need to start looking inside for what we can do to correct imbalances in our lives using our own resources and the resources of our own personal networks, and quit expecting the government to solve problems we can solve on our own. The "blame" for the credit crisis goes far and wide, as I've noted, but NO ONE, until I brought it up weeks ago, was talking seriously about the role that borrowers played in all this and the role that Congressmen representing poor districts played in forcing Fannie, Freddie on down to back or make loans to indigent Americans who could not afford to pay them back. It's about the politics of class. Not race. Class. Good intentions gone bad.

Actually, they're real "Maverick-eee."