Lubow's top ten reasons for the mess. What are yours?

These are my top ten reasons for the current mess in the US financial 
contagion.  What are yours?

0. It is rare that we find a politician who can significantly change
people's 
lives for better or worse. The usual politician in this category is in one
form 
or another a genius.  You know the names; some were great, some were
diabolical, 
e.g., Wa****ngton, Lincoln, Roosevelt, LBJ, Hitler, Stalin, Mao.  For the
first 
time a complete incompetent enters this illustrious group for the crime of

criminal stupidity, Pres. George W. Bush.

1. GOP congress' passing and Clinton's signing the bill to repeal
Glass-Steagall

2. Six years of incompetent Treasury secretaries (Hank Paulson seems to
know 
what he's doing -- too little too late).

3. Seven years of out-of-control deficit spending

4. A demoralizing war that seems to have no end and even less sup****t

5. Failure to continue Bob Rubin's policy of paying down the national debt

6. A Federal administration that lacks credibility from the vast majority
of 
Americans

7. An out of control banking system in an era of "deregulation" (see (1)
above).

8. A cor****ate culture based on quarterly results having priority over
long term 
investment.

9. Surrender of the United States' lead in technology, research and
development 
to cheaper offshore labor for the purpose of better quarterly and
ephemeral 
results.

10.. A Fed chairman who never worked in the private sector


Item (10) may require a little more explanation.  Look at some of the
people who 
graduated high school with you.  Is the wealthiest fellow graduate also
the 
class valedictorian?  In my case, Brooklyn Technical High School, our
wealthiest 
graduate was a C- student who made his fortune building a grocery store
empire 
in Manhattan.  Our valedictorian drove a cab for awhile and now sells real

estate for another fellow graduate who was a C student.

Dr. Bernanke was a high school valedictorian who got a job at Stanford,
then 
Princeton after getting his PhD at MIT (ok, going to MIT is one thing he
got 
right). But where does the skill set that enables one to succeed in
academics, 
i.e., good at test taking and writing about seemingly incomprehensible
theory, 
translate into running the largest bank in the history of the world?  You
now 
see the results of another bad political appointment along with all those
losers 
appointed as Secretary of the Treasury.

Where does it end?  History of economic turbulence shows that as in a
physical 
system, economic systems strive to achieve equilibrium. The difference is
that 
physical systems, like a weight hanging off a network of pulleys, achieves

equilibrium almost instantaneously (in calculus, they call it dt). 
Economic 
systems are different.   It took twenty years, which included a 20% prime
rate 
and the good fortune to have Bob Rubin at Treasury, to correct the
imbalances 
caused by Vietnam.  IMO, the past seven years has been just as much a
disaster 
and accomplished just as little as the Vietnam War and it will take
another 
generation and another Paul Volcker to correct it.

Comments are welcomed.

--Lubow.