The Great Economic Meltdown of 2008 was a result of incompetent CEO's in about every super bank and insurance carriers.

They ignored one of the most basic factors in business. It's not how much you charge its how much you collect.

In 2004 (+/-) Providian Insurance (a 100+ year old company based in Louisville Kentucky) hired a new CEO. He decided to deversify the company and start offering credit cards to high risk/poor credit customers.

In the annual meeting this was piched as a super opportunity. It was pointed out that these poor credit customers could be charged extreemly high fees and interest because they would not be able to obtain credit otherwise. Projections of profits were based on all of these fees and interest that would be charged on the loans and this CEO was hailed a hero.

This extreemly educated CEO forgot that they would have to collect on these loans. If someone defaults on loans in the past with reasonable terms, why would they honor/pay loans with inflated fees?

So this bussiness plan caught on. Soon Mortgage brokers were making loans to anyone that could sign their name and some that could make their mark on a contract. To heck with collateral security and performance history. We can offer 110% loans to high risk customers and just look at the number of new loans and the fees we can charge.

Providian Insurance was one of the first to fail. After 100+/- years of business they were bankrupt in a couple of short years after the expansion into high risk credit.

The morale of this story is that it was not necessarily Republicans or Democrats that started this economic mess it was greed at the highest level of businesses.

One bright spot in this mess is that Americans are paying down/off their debt at the fastest rate in history. Credit card debt is at its lowest in over 20+ years.

The economist are trying to say how this is hurting the current economy and is holding us back. I say a slower recovery is better and more secure. As Americans shed their debt burden to sustainable levels they will start spending again (this time with prudence I hope).

Look for the Economy to soar when people start spending their money on products and services instead of fees and interest payments.