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Is that why it sucks? I guess you and I live in different parts of the country. Around here, we think the economy sucks because all the people work on Wall St. and get paid millions or 10's of millions of dollars to work in companies that reward people for writing bad mortgages, sending jobs overseas, cutting R&D, and then when their companies get in trouble, get bailed out by the government. Oh, and those Wall St. workers, because they have enough money to throw around, drive up the cost of housing so the "dumb" person in your example had to pay $400K for a $200K house. I personally don't come into contact with anyone like your example; are those your friends and neighbors? All the people I come into contact with either have more money than they know what to do with, or are struggling just to get by...without expensive cars or houses.
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Yes that is why it sucks, IMO.
Maybe it is different parts of the country. To answer your questions/critism
A)Florida has been hit hard by the housing crisis and given that a lot of our economy depends on tourism, we have been hit hard by the economy as well.
B)Most of the people I know, went to college with, etc are the exact people I was referring to.
The problem with an open-market capitilism is that it is set by the market (the common man). I don't see how evil, mean CEO's are the ones to blame. The ones to blame are the people who spent money on stuff they couldn't afford. Nobody HAD to buy a 200k house for 400k, regardless of what the evil CEO's were doing. However people wanted to live in a 200k house, and their demand drove the prices up. Perhaps they shouldn't have bought what they couldn't afford, and lived in their means (perhaps a 100k house for 150k).
I see a lot of friends and acquientences who make less money, have more kids, drive nicer cars, etc... However they are so far in debt (like most of America) and live so far beyond their means (maybe just Florida?). No matter what fixes we do, if people continue to live beyond their means, then the rich will get richer and middle class will fade. However you can not legislate people to living in their means.
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Maybe you can't stop people from being dumb, but you can stop them from getting a car loan or a mortgage if they can't afford it. Once upon a time, you had to qualify for those things. Other posters can blame this on government, but in the end, it's the lenders who lent money to bad risks, because (IMO) of their greed.[
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I'm not so quick to let people of the hook because of the lenders. If people signed the loan or mortgage and they couldn't afford it, then really the blame relys on the people who choose to sign their name.
The lenders screwed up by taking to much risk, and they (not us) should pay for it. However, people should take respondsiblity for the papers they sign and the debt they cannot pay (which has effected all of us).