Give the banks a break.

All this talk about the need to punish Wall Street for its mistakes.. is misguided. The i-banker isn't to blame. Sure.. he makes a six figure salary to simply move money around. Sure.. he travels the world in his private jet. But.. the real culprit, I think, is the system that fools us into thinking that there are guaranteed returns on our investments. That makes everyone think they are entitled to an acre of land and a large house. And a large car. A system buoyed up only by the rather fragile notion of market "confidence." 

I think we should rethink the idea of debt.. and start making better decisions based on real accumulation of capital. Not having a nice mortgage, or a platinum credit card, or a student loan.. can actually be a good thing. It will cause us to live according to what we can afford. Buildings will be built according our needs, and not what some developer thinks we want. Universities will no longer take for granted the number of students that walk through their gates. We will make smarter decisions about what to buy and what we cannot buy. We can live more simply...