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Ouch! Economies in Free Fall

Things are getting decidedly ugly on Wall St. - and as a consequence around the globe.

As William Greider writes on The Nation, Washington has quite quickly stepped up to the plate to stop free fall in the US economy. Whether it will all work is another matter. However, as Greider points out:

"The bailouts are rewarding the very people and institutions whose reckless behavior caused this financial mess. Yet government demands nothing from them in return--like new rules for prudent behavior and explicit obligations to serve the national interest. Washington ought to compel the financial players to rein in their appetite for profit in order to help save the country from a far worse fate: a depressed economy that cannot regain its normal energies. Instead, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, the Democratic Congress and of course the Republicans meekly defer to the wise men of high finance, who no longer seem so all-knowing."

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