I appreciate your thoughtful reply. While I am making the transition to a web developer at the moment, I have a graduate degree in Economics and I have spent some time working in the investment industry (Main St, not Wall St). I would just like to share an alternative viewpoint with you:

1) I wouldn't think of it as "cheating the system", but I would think of it as rational self-interest. Given a set of constraints, people will optimize for the best personal outcome.

2) People maximize their utility (utility is a measure of happiness). Whether someone is honest or dishonest is nothing more than a preference input into their utility maximization functions.

What this means is that if the punishment for breaking some law is exceeded by the benefits (to the individual) of doing so, then that individual will break the law. Think about how many people casually drive 5 to 10 miles over the speed limit (or 20 to 30 down here in Texas).

With that said, whose dishonesty is responsible for the housing collapse:

* Were the homeowners dishonest for taking on loans they could not afford to pay back?

* Were the lenders and real estate agents dishonest for making the loans to the home owners?

* Were the finance guys responsible for thinking that risk could be mitigated using the tools of finance?

* Were the investors being dishonest for cheering on returns that were above market-average without considering the risk?

Painting a market with the brushes of corruption and dishonesty does very little to advance an understanding of how the event happened and what can be done to prevent it in the future.

4) Professionals with an understanding of the financial industry were generally in favor of the bailouts. The government listened to the professionals.

Goldman Sachs hires a lot of economists and finance guys, and they hire the people with the best resumes. One should hardly scream conspiracy if it turns out that some of these "cream of the crop" individuals end up working in the treasury. Statistically, the probability of it happening randomly is actually quite high.

"Likewise, I think that the best economy will be produced by many mistakes, and learning from them."

I completely agree with this.

"One thing I am pretty sure we will learn is that no corruptible entity should ever control an economy, because corruption is always the end result. (All hail our new robot overlords :D)"

There is no need for us to resort to robots. We simply have to understand that people are self-interested and build a system that channels this self-interest into outcomes that are efficient for society as a whole.

"And I will just leave this here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_von_Hayek I'm sure you have probably read up on this guy."

Hayek was an amazing logician, but the application of his theories to the modern economy is unproductive. The questions that he asked have been answered by modern economics in the 50 years that have passed since he asked them.

I consider myself an advocate for breaking down the wall that exists between modern economics and people that would like to increase their understanding of modern economics without being economists themselves. If you have anything that you would like to ask me about anything that I wrote above (or any of Hayek's specific points), then I would be happy to answer them (regardless of the beating that my karma takes).