There is a fundamental difference between 2003 and today. That difference is that more than half the american public understands the basics of what happened and the basic terminology. This will never slip by again. We on this site are an extremely small minority, a few years ago, the public in general had no idea what was happening and I found that there were only one or two people in my world who I could have conversation about it with. Today, I can talk to any schmuck sitting next to me in a bar and he can keep up with a conversation about subprime, mbs, cds, alt a, fannie, freddie, etc.

The American people are interested, therefore the mass media is interested and that is why returning to 2003 will not happen anytime soon, no matter who is in office, there is just too much attention being paid right now.

We are just days away from an election and I have not heard any of the 20 or so people I talked totoday mention abortion, gun control, iraq or any of the other things that elections usually bring up. Almost every conversation was financial, including people who previously knew very little about the system. This cat can’t be put back in the bag.