Rewind

The Great Recession has taken a terrible toll: As of January 2011, 26 million Americans were out of work, four million families lost their homes to foreclosure; four and half million more have slipped into foreclosure process. Nearly $11 trillion in household wealth -- retirement savings, college tuition plans -- has vanished.
And what caused this calamity? Did the government have a "Five-Year Plan" that went horribly wrong? Did the Fed wrongly recalibrate currency rates that plunged exports?
No. It was big business run amok. In a phrase, the housing bubble burst. And what caused the housing bubble? "Low interest rates, easy and available credit, scant regulation and toxic mortgages" -- that's from the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.
Capitalism a great and wonderful thing. But left unfettered and unregulated, it will inevitably turn to scams and corruption - in the short-term, it's always more profitable to cut corners and make the cheap, fast buck.
And so we have a situation where our core government services -- education, health care -- are being scaled back, while bankers still go about their lives, cashing in bonuses and pondering whether it's time to upgrade the BMW. There is a moral argument to be made here, but the economic argument is better: if we can't build the best brains in the next generation, we will weaken as a nation. And that will make everyone even poorer.