Vatican newspaper says crisis shows failure of "new economy" - Catholic News Service, 9/24/08:

The U.S. financial meltdown has been blamed on "the greed of managers and lack of regulations. But curiously, no one ever refers to the indirect responsibility of the government's economic policy" which, he wrote, tried to cover the lack of any real economic development with a booming Wall Street.

"In order to maintain this sham GNP, the banks financed things that were not guaranteed" and that should not have been financed, like the subprime loans, it said. Financial institutions created an "economic growth out of debt and, therefore, (created something) very risky," it added.

And this makes me sick:

David Rothkopf, who headed the International Trade Administration under President Clinton, says all three Latin American presidents can now cite U.S. government intervention in the economy to justify their policies.

"And you know, in the past, the United States has been able to say, well you know, 'Don't do that, look at how prosperous we are, and we would never do that.' But in the wake of the effective nationalization of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, we have now intervened more in our financial markets than a lot of those countries have," he says.