Need new leaders to right financial ship

It's not a coincidence that the Great Depression of 1929, the savings and loan scandal of the 1980s and the current debacle in the financial world all occurred in Republican administrations (Hoover, Reagan, Bush), as a result of the unchecked avarice based on the Republican philosophy of nonregulation and free-market capitalism. Capitalism may be the best economic engine for prosperity, but any student of history has seen that, unbridled and unregulated, it leads to greed among its owners resulting in exploitation of workers. Eventually, the "balloon bursts" and economic havoc occurs. Capitalism needs to be regulated for the benefit of our economy as well as our citizens. Regulation of it is a proper function of the federal government since individual citizens cannot do it nor can the separate states. We need a Democratic victory in 2008 as we did in 1932 to institute regulations of the mortgage and other aspects of the financial industry that should have been in place to prevent this current debacle. We cannot afford another four years of this unregulated economy or we will be in another Great(er) Depression.

Jean Alberti

Lombard