In my question as to government requirements on banks, “exploit” was not meant in a negative way; I meant that, as far as I was aware, banks, housing markets, and other industries were looking to take advantage of the number of individuals with lesser amounts of income and lower credit scores who wanted very much to buy a house/car/take out a loan for whatever. I agree with you that this is as much a crisis caused by individuals buying with money they don’t have and can’t get as it is businesses willing to sell to them, but I am not aware of the government forcing banks or any other market to making these sales.

To answer your philosophical question, I don’t believe that the private sector is wrong all the time, but I believe it is unwise to have it govern itself and walk away and hope for the best, something I feel was largely done by government regulatory agencies over the past several years, going back to the ’90s, when the whole subprime thing started. I’m generally pro-regulation, but only enough to hold them accountable and prevent situations that have the possibility to spin out of countrol, as so many have as of late.

And (ironically, I’m sure you will say) I am heavily against the excesses of government spending and the running up of the national debt. I was very vocal about it in the last administration, and if this were even three or four years ago, I would call this stimulus package excessive and unnecessary spending, but I’ve gotta say that part of what makes a stimulus a stimulus is a sizable injection of government money into areas that will most benefit from the injection. And while some people in a better situation than others (my family included) might prefer a car to a toaster (or retail and private-sector jobs as opposed to construction and other blue-collar ones), this is largely a stimulus for people who need and want the toaster, and I’m okay with that.
Once we’re out of this crisis, I’ll go back to pushing for trimming down our spending and balancing our budget, and I think we’ll start agreeing on a lot more things economically. But I don’t believe now is the time to make those our priorities.

Again, thanks for a great debate.