Maybe this helps to put the current situation into perspective: the SEC budget for enforcement personnel is less than the smithsonian institution.
“The number of enforcement personnel, the people who go after the financial engineers, is expected to decline. That’s right. Despite the trillion-dollar meltdown now underway, the number of SEC enforcement personnel will decline from 1,209 this year to 1,177 in 2009. In all, the SEC expects to have 3,771 employees next year. For comparison, the Smithsonian Institution budget for 2009 includes funding for 4,324 employees.”
Hmm, don’t you thing that reflects a policy decision by BOTH parties and reflects the state we are in?
The bottom line is that the neoliberals under Clinton/Rubin where of like mind with the neocon Reagan/Bush cabal to give us the no regulation financial free for all we have today along with free trade to ship manufacturing jobs overseas, so we manufacture virtually nothing significant relative to our GDP other than sophisticated military weapons that are quite expensive, but creative financial products which obviously are coming to an end, and this is the logical result and what we have today, and will have to pay going forward for a long time.
So, since most of you voted for one or the other business party candidates, feel free to take credit where credit is due, and give yourself a hearty pat on the back for being such suckers.
