Our Country Is Paying For Its Economic Sins

Just about everyone is watching Wall Street these days wondering what's going to fall next. Giant investment firms have tumbled and other financial companies have been bought by the federal government because their demise would severely harm our economic system. It's scary for regular folks who are worrying about their 401ks, IRAs and any other investment.

The ramifications for most regular people who have retirement funds will be felt in ways many of us don't even know, according to experts. Most investment funds have all kinds of tentacles into other markets that could be affected by collapsing investment companies.

The one thing Americans should understand is that our banking system is sound. Savings won't be lost in FDIC insured banks. That said, pensions and IRAs don't have that kind of protection. A lot of people could see their investment account balances drop precipitously.

These are scary days for anyone with investments, and just about everyone else in our country. The economy just doesn't seem to improve. Bad news is followed by more bad news. We can't seem to cycle out of it.

About all that's clear is that the regulators who were supposed to be keeping an eye on financial practices were not doing their jobs. Billions were made making bad loans, taking on risky investments and pretending that the bubble would never burst. It burst alright, and now we are paying for it.

New rules and regulations are not needed to prevent this from happening again, but enforcement of what we already have is imperative. Obviously greed got the best of Wall Street, and anyone else who made incredible windfalls and didn't wonder or worry how that money was obtained or how long it would last is hit the hardest. Now we know.

We obviously can't trust Wall Street brokers to be wise, and we can't trust ourselves to refrain from "irrational exuberance." We all loved that money rolling in, but the clock's struck midnight and everything's changing back.

Let's hope we're near the end of this terrible economic cycle. We're afraid, however, that we have a long way to go to pay for our economic sins.