OUR unemployment rate

[theblindferrengi]

Governments have no reason to buy shares in large companies. It wouldn't the "free market" if government had control over business in such a way. Markets do not require regulation...it was regulation that got business in trouble in the first place. If governments didn't get involved so much, we'd have more small-scale businesses and better competition, rather than favoritism.

To use your food-web analogy, some species would disappear, but that only leaves room for other species to take their place.

It was in fact the govenrments deregulation of the markets passed by president Clinton that lead to the current economic recession. The regulations banning things like economic derivitaves (quite litterally betting on market values), and credit default swaps (a third party buying insurance against loans, effectively betting they will fail), were removed, and it became extremely profitable to engage in economicly detrimental enterprizes. A trend like this can only work to a point, just like only so many animals can be hunted before the ecosystem is damaged, and that point was crossed. Money that companies not only did not have, but that never existed in te first place was being used, and in turn, those transactions were being bet upon with more money that nobody ever had.

The government is now trying to clean up the mess as best it can without having the consequenses of this crisis effect the economy. What should be happening from the economic recession is severe inflation and devaluation of the USD, and the government is taking actions to stop it, as severe inflation would be economically harmful to absolutely everyone. Since this situation is thje governments fault to begin with, I hardly see why they should be exempt from cleaning up their mess.