Steven Guess: Wall Street bail-out represents the end of the ...

As Paul Krugman recently remarked: "Just as there are no atheists in foxholes, there are no libertarians in a financial crisis."

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We are blaming consumers for trying to get easy credit, and financial institutions for trying to make lots of money. Is that not how the system was supposed to work? How can we second-guess willing sellers and willing buyers who purchased mortgage-backed securities at their market rate? Their risk, their reward – but apparently not their loss. The invisible hand seems all too obviously elitist. The rich are in trouble, so we act. The poor have been in trouble since the beginning of time, but that's just background noise on our walk to work.

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Fiscal conservatives tried and failed to make the central component of the bailout a combination of deregulation and tax cuts.

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While no one can yet suggest America is on the verge of a second New Deal, paradigm shifts are often not obviously apparent at the time they occur.

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Corporate executives should not have the right to risk the entire American economy – indeed the global economy – as part of their portfolio management, regardless of Ayn Rand's philosophical musings.

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While Republicans struggle to explain how the irresponsible decisions of executives and consumers are to blame, but their own policies which afforded them this opportunity are not, one wonders about the legacy of Reagan's economic policies. It seems that in a time of serious economic crisis, Americans will turn to Roosevelt rather than Reagan. Doing nothing simply isn't an option, and tax cuts and deregulation in a time of corporate excess makes little sense. It is only natural to wonder if this is more than a temporary shift in political discourse.

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