Comparing blaming "manipulators" (notice, not "speculators", which would be trite and unfair) of the market (and providing specfic examples of how it's done) is not the same as comparing themn to "Jews" (as in Merchant of Venice and Nazi Germany and other places at other times). As a matter of fact, when the mob on Capitol Hill singled out AIG people who received "bonuses" it made me think of them being used as "Jews". And when the ACORN mob started riding a bus around those AIG employees' houses, it made me think how close are we to Kristallnacht or pogroms?
Re "short selling forced writedowns quickly rather than being papered over for 5 to 10 years," I'd much prefer the latter since it would only affect and orderly deflate the value of banks (along with their assets on the books) instead of creating a major crisis and massive destruction of capital and near destruction of capitalist financial system (which may yet happen, depending on how much "change" our new government "hopes" to inflict on us)
Good comments on OPM and most governments' (not just ours) "solutions" that extend and prolong the problems that market itself would solve (with enough temporary liquidity, necessary to quell panics).
The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.
To cure the British disease with socialism was like trying to cure leukaemia with leeches.
- Margaret Thatcher
DemRats equivalent of the Reichstag fire.