You lost me at "Government regulated". So, no. Just no.
Yeah! Except for clean water, clean air, safe food, safe medicine, safe cars and highways, what has the government ever done for us?
Let the market solve air pollution!
I believe citizens are capable of making their own decisions on consumer loans with minimal paternal oversight.
I do support government regulation for many broad public safety issues including some that you've identified. I also believe that all governments, regardless of political stripe, tend towards over regulation. "Give an inch and they'll take a mile" applies to policy makers and therefore debate on their process is always required, that's my focus.
All you have to do is look at the 2008 collapse to see what happens when the government steps away from regulating and enforcing those regulations. The unregulated derivatives market is still a mess and could very well collapse again. Financial institutions are literally banking on the fact that they are "too big to fail."
I believe that professionals in any industry can take advantage of an average citizen, not because the citizen is dumb, but these companies spend a lot of time and money researching ways to "maximise profit" regardless of the morality of the situation. Car loans, phone plans, cable bills, they screw people with the fine print all the time. Governments are the only means of setting limits on corporate behaviour.
Ah, we've been over this, but "homeownership for every American" was a de facto government sponsored plan.
That, and at the end of the day crashes happen. Always have, always will. Its built into human behaviour. The fact that it happened at the time that it did just makes securitization a convenient scapegoat, but that would be missing the point.
There were not really any derivatives to speak of in 1929. Still blew up!
EDIT:
We've also been over
this, but the private sector did its share to push things forward, keep the charade going too. Many stupid and unethical things happened. But at least at the depths a lot of that got wiped out (between losses in stock markets and mass firings on the street). The fact that we're back at all time highs in the SPX is another story.
My only point is that the banks / private sector is
not the wholly responsible party, as some (most?) seem to believe.