2008, a come back year for journalism?

Are we ever going to see a perp walk for those responsible for the past decades private profits and recent social loses? To believe so, I believe you have to put your faith in the press, who have yet to point the finger where blame lies for our current catastrophe.

Consider the assholes who do Wall Street’s bidding in the media. For decades, they have bloviated about the near infallibility of "free" markets and how any form of regulation is socialist and needs to be eliminated. This has conveniently provided cover for the Street as well as corp executives who reaped enormous wealth while the average American saw their incomes, wealth and standard of living flat line.

Clearly the deregulate everything argument has now been laid to waste. The emperors are now revealed to be buck naked and clueless. A destruction of the credit markets (AND interestingly the recent sharp decline of the price of oil) prove this. Both were largely driven by wild use of leverage employed by increasingly deregulated banks and totally unregulated private investment funds. When their short term thinking and flawed risk analysis turned south, it was the govt who had to come to the rescue. This has come in the form of tax dollars from those same flat lining average Americans.

Private gains, public losses.

Moving forward, I think we are going to be living in a more regulated, less risk taking environment. In short, I think our economic system is going the way of Europe, and deregulation is going to be rolled back.

Fine. Govt regulation is often a brake to growth and innovation, but maybe it is also necessary. But watch and listen closely. See if any of the WSJ's editorial page writers, CNBC hacks, Business Week writers, Univ of Chicago economic thinkers, etc are held accountable. And what about the leaders of the Street and corporate America? Will they be held accountable alla Ivan Boesky, Michael Milkin, etc?

In short, will the press in the country have the balls to call people out? Already this decade the press fell down spectacularly with regards to Iraq. Will it do so again when it comes to economic crimes? I don’t believe politicians will act unless they are goaded to do so by the public who has all of this explained to them by the press. Remember politicians did the bidding of Wall Street by undoing regulation. Here is a chance for the press to redeem themselves.

And if you think this isn’t important, consider the effect on your 401K, US employment, consumer prices like oil (gas, heating oil). Its been absolutely devestating. It will take people years (if they have them) to get back to where they were. And their incomes, personal wealth, etc were flat lining back then.