Not only is the decline of previously accepted social and financial regulations reflected in the relative, but important, drop in wage income as a percentage of GDP – and therefore consumer spending – in all developed countries in the last thirty years, but also the deliberate abolition of controls allows the banking sector to do as it pleases. Still, to judge from most media coverage, the parallel sub-prime and packaged loan crises, which are paralyzing global finance, are entirely attributable to banks’ “immorality,” and are in no way due to systemic failure.