Every one of our economic problems can be traced back to one cause

[ThomWV]

Loss of jobs.

Similarly, every one of our financial problems (there is a difference) can be traced back to one root cause too.

Loss of regulation.

[mwb970]

1. And both of *those* can be traced to a single Primal Cause.

Failed. Conservative. Policies.

[jazzjunkysue]

3. Failed GOP policies, actually. Had the real conservatives put a stop to this charge card

existance, we wouldn't be here.

I've been saying, for 8 years, where are the real conservatives? From Wiki:

Fiscal conservatism

Fiscal conservatism is the economic philosophy of prudence in government spending and debt. Edmund Burke, in his 'Reflections on the Revolution in France', articulated its principles:

...t is to the property of the citizen, and not to the demands of the creditor of the state, that the first and original faith of civil society is pledged. The claim of the citizen is prior in time, paramount in title, superior in equity. The fortunes of individuals, whether possessed by acquisition or by descent or in virtue of a participation in the goods of some community, were no part of the creditor's security, expressed or implied...he public, whether represented by a monarch or by a senate, can pledge nothing but the public estate; and it can have no public estate except in what it derives from a just and proportioned imposition upon the citizens at large.

In other words, a government does not have the right to run up large debts and then throw the burden on the taxpayer; the taxpayers' right not to be taxed oppressively takes precedence even over paying back debts a government may have imprudently undertaken.

[Hotler]

2. The outsourcing of jobs should framed as unpatriotic.

You throw American workers out to hire workers in a foreign country you're unpatriotic. You fire American workers to hire workers in a communist country you're a fucking traitor.

[jazzjunkysue]

4. As should b ailing out foreign companies with our money, as Paulson just

announced he'll do.

[El Pinko]

5. Or more specifically, the lack of good jobs.

We cannot have a vibrant economy based on a nation of baristas and underpaid cubicle drones.

Most "white collar" workers I know make less than plumbers these days (not that plumbers don't deserve to make good money...)

[alcibiades_mystery]

6. I'll do you one better: the profit system is incoherent

It always has been and always will be. You can control it slightly with what we called Keynesianism, but that demands slow growth and low profits. When uncontrolled, it always leads to monopoly, oligarchy, and waves of economic crisis. It is as ideal and impractical a system as Marxism: it has never, ever, worked in practice, ever.