Mismanagement Due to Deregulation...

Which, of course, leads to economic hardship, recession, job loss, etc. Wall Street rocked by Lehman failure and Merrill sale.

And yet, there are still idiots out there who only rely on their "hard data," to the exclusion of ALL other factors. What an idiot.

And with all this, deregulation continues, and Bank of America gets to get even larger. Hooray. The reward for mismanagement on Wall Street is allowing huge business to be gargantuan business.

Warned our (hopefully) future president, Barack Obama:

"The challenges facing our financial system today are more evidence that too many folks in Washington and on Wall Street weren't minding the store," Obama said in a statement.

"Eight years of policies that have shredded consumer protections, loosened oversight and regulation, and encouraged outsized bonuses to CEOs while ignoring middle-class Americans have brought us to the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression," he said.

Squarely blaming Republican President George W. Bush's administration for the crisis, Obama warned "this turmoil is a major threat to our economy and its ability to create good-paying jobs and help working Americans pay their bills, save for their future, and make their mortgage payments."