One place to put the blame is not receiving it. That is the basics of a free society. I see both Washington and Wall St. sharing the blame. That tells me that it is a product of our society and the free market system. Ups and downs are normal. We are now experiencing a peaceful, global economy on an unprecedented scale. This fueled a complacency that couldn???t be seen from any one single position. There will always be Bernie Madoffs, and Alan Greenspans, but most people in both business and government couldn???t see enough individually to foresee the problems. The few people who saw the problems were not in a position to do much about it. The whole country wanted smaller government, and the corporate heads wanted to maximize their company???s profits. Both are legitimate goals.

A recent program on the recession had an interview with Alan Greenspan that scared the willies out of me. He was completely ignorant of far too much far too late. He didn???t know, but he should have known. But he was guilty of arrogance that comes with powerful positions. We can???t stop that.

The program also made a very good point not covered elsewhere. That is once the cycle started any one company or CEO who may have tried to stop the cycle would have put his own company at least down if not out of business. No one single CEO or company could put on the brakes once the returns started rising.