Socialism is good.  Regulation is great.  The reason the U.S. is in a mess is due to the Futures and Commodities Modernization Act of 2000 creating a completely unregulated derivatives, CDO, CDS, and MBS market, which catalyzed the real estate boom and allowed lots of stupid banks to loan to greedy Americans to buy homes that were two sizes too large for their budget.  The deleveraging of this mess is what's caused the situation we're in now.  If we had regulations in place requiring more disclosure of information or restrictions on the scope of a collateralized debt obligation and mortgage-backed security, this whole situation wouldn't have occurred.

For more information youtube Khan Academy, as I'm too lazy to explain in detail basic economics to clueless fifth grade-level tea partiers here.

Tchau