Dramatic Financial Meltdown - Frontline

PBS is currently broadcasting a great dramatic one-hour summary of the financial events of 2008:
Frontline - Inside the Meltdown
This has been my obsession for the last six months, and it kept me awake last night worrying about the rest of this year for the world financial system. The events are edited down to a compelling hour, but it could have easily been two hours. Perhaps they will do a second part of this after the pragmatic Obama Administration has had an opportunity to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

This series of market failures has radicalized me. My left-leaning philosophy has become clearer and even more leftward than it has ever been. The corporate financial structure of the United States is becoming more government controlled by osmosis and the course of events. This is not something that has happened because people wish it to be so, but because it must be so. The conversion of Henry Paulson from free market fundamentalist to interventionist has been astounding, and the Frontline presentation of this is stark and accurate.

A wise person I know recently compared the human mind to underwear, changing it is necessary from time to time. He also intimated that information and the application of logic should be catalysts for mind changing. In the case of Henry Paulson, events played a bigger part. Shit happened and the only rational, pragmatic response was socialistic. Paulson's first instinct was to let his philosophy of free market fundamentalism guide his actions. These actions failed and he learned from this.

I hope the thinking American voters will learn some of the lessons Paulson learned, but I doubt the 'independent' voters and Republican base can do this. That is what kept me from sleeping soundly last night