PERILS OF UNSUPERVISED FREE MARKET

US finally had to reconcile to the harsh reality - it will be foolhardy to continue to be the breast-thumping champion of the so-called free market.
To buy 'significant' stakes in 9 US banks which are apparently in good health is in other words govermentalization of these institutions. It was a silver bullet that was hard to swallow for the current Republican administration.
Republicans have been strong votaries of the concept that free market mechanism will work fine on its own, and no oversight is necessary. They somehow formed a notion in their minds, of course naively, that people will self-regulate and things will always be hunky dory.
May be some of them were really NOT so naive and may have felt in their heart of hearts that left to themselves the human nature can create mayhem in the free market realm, but probably they were not so bold to rock the boat, as they say.
It is impossible to believe that Republican thinkers were too dumb to visualize the scenario of free market mechanism spinning out of control one day or the other given the increasing financial greed. Anyway, eventually the present dispensation in Washington came around to realize the importance of oversight of free market operations.
But it was sad to see that US which boasts tens of living Nobel Laureates in Economics could not come out quickly with steps to meet the current financial turmoil. Consequently, the US administration became a poor copy cat of their British and European counterparts who came out first with the idea of buying stakes in big banks and implemented without dithering.
Whether you support the philosophy of Party A or Party B, what is of paramount importance when you are presiding over a country's affairs is that you do what is best for your country. You don't remain doped by the ideology of the party you support or remain obstinately shackled to its illogical tenets. But, unfortunately, the Republicans in last decade or so did exactly that. The result: US ended up becoming camp followers of Europe, and fell from the grace of being the most powerful economic nation on this planet.
Wall Street will not be same as it used to be in terms of clout in the world of financial goings-on. And, the Americans will have to get used to be part of pack, not the leader. The sooner it happens the less pain they will feel to adjust to new world order.