The problem is that you **can’t** have a recovery without a painful cleansing. We will face this pain, one way or another. I’d rather see the culprits behind this mess feel the pain more than those who’ve tried to be responsible and do the right thing.

The pain will be felt; there is no possible way to avoid it. The only thing we have control over is deciding *who* feels the brunt of it, and *how long* we intend to administer the pain. What they’re doing now is dragging it out, and putting greater distance between those who caused the “crisis” and the ultimate consequences of their actions.

If we had let the gamblers (and much of the financial system) implode, the pain would have been very sharp, but we would be far closer to a REAL recovery than we are now. We’ve only made the problems worse.