Why captitalism stinks

Pure capitalism ignores the greed in the hearts of all humans and thus needs safeguards to protect against monopolies. The trouble is that corporations can buy off politicians so that they look the other way as companies get themselves as close to monopoly status as the law will allow (sometimes further). Worse yet, the abuses of business cause a backlash of popular opinion that can be played by politicians to both intimidate companies that won't "play" and quietly issue favors to their pet CEOs in the fine print of bills that are supposed to punish the "evil rich people".

Guess what I think is going on with the current economic crisis?
Yep, we got "regulation" without oversight and caused grief for small banks
while allowing big banks to make loans that would never be able to be paid, but made money in the short term so their CEOs could make insane bonuses and direct the company to make campaign contributions.

The worst part is that our trying to fix capitalism with socialist/communist ideas will end up causing more misery than fiddling while the economy burns. The short term may see a lessening of the misery, but it will keep flawed business models in place so they can continue to fail, continue to waste taxpayer money, and continue to keep out the new startup companies that know how to run a business and know how to change with the market.

America has been the greatest nation because it subscribed to individual freedom to choose the course for your own life (granting upward mobility in the financial class system), a representative democracy (giving us the power to elect leaders that will fight the abuses of corporations), a limited federal government (keeping politicians from having too much say in the workings of businesses they weren't trained to run), and a strong work ethic with a safety net no one wanted to be caught by (up until recently, you weren't given free money for not working, but had to seek out your local church for money and your government only gave you bulk food). Where these have been undermined is where our country has fallen on tough times.

sadly, communism and socialism are worse for the same reason that they ignore human greed, but for them it shows up in a lack of work ethic. Why work hard if you'll get paid the same as someone who doesn't?