My Comment: There’s been a lot of comment over the past three years about a “crisis in captitalism”. The Republicans would have you believe the Obama camp is trying to turn us into Socialists; the Democrats complain that Wall Street has run amock and that greed and the profit motive has caused irreperable harm. It’s never that simple and this article that appeared this morning in the Financial Times suggests just that. If you have trouble getting to the root article on the Financial Times website, let me know and I’ll get it to you in another format.

By Steven Rattner for the Financial Times

Amid the finger-pointing about the failures of capitalism, we should not forget the responsibility of governments. They relaxed regulatory requirements, turned a blind eye to dangerous activities and indulged in their own excesses. Capitalism is like an energetic child who needs boundaries and discipline. If a toddler accidentally sets his home on fire, it is the parents who bear the blame. “Capitalism in crisis” could easily be subtitled “government in crisis”.

I am not trying to excuse capitalism or its principal actors from a generous portion of the blame for the pain of the past four years. Serious alterations are needed. But government has also let us down. The eurozone’s mess is hardly the fault of capitalism or the financial system. Public officials who created the euro went ahead with the hare-brained scheme of their own accord. Indeed, many financiers (myself included) proclaimed loudly that the euro was ill-designed and likely to run aground.

Finish reading this article HERE…