Most of that stuff is out of my pay grade. Whether or not 'tis better to let a business, an industry, or the world economic system fail, with all the collateral damage involved; or to bail it out and try to restructure the mess by spreading out the consequences, is a judgement call.

I can't tell which is best, I'm not sure anyone can. I do know that having millions thrown out of work, through no fault of their own, because some financial wizard stepped on his dick cannot be a very good idea. There are worse things than going into debt; like living on the street and starving to death. Its hard to create wealth when nobody is working, and whether we like it or not, wealth is created by people working, not clever guys in suits shtupping their secretaries in corner offices.

And remember, a lot of problems just go away on their own if you can just keep things together long enough, like the US World War II debt. Or in case an even bigger problem replaces it...I can guarantee you, if we lose a half-dozen aircraft carriers in some foreign battle zone, no one will care about the deficit any more.

As for the personal finance questions, everyone has their opinions. Gold may be a great investment, or it could just be another bubble, like gasoline, hi-tech stocks or real estate. Besides, if we get to the point where people are buying with bullion, maybe investing in canned goods, ammo and blankets might be wiser than stocking up on Krugerands.

As for using your house as a cash reservoir, that never made any sense to me, and in my opinion, wrecked a lot of families who started leveraging themselves to invest in real estate. OTOH, you've got to live somewhere, and I am sooooo happy I paid my mortgage off early instead of following my yuppie friends' advice and putting it into the stock market because the return was better, and buying a McMansion because real estate was going to go up forever. Now they are, (as we say in Florida), sucking canal water, and I'm doing my annoying "I told you so" dance.

The major problem is debt, but debt was not invented by the government. It also occurs at the business level, the financial level, and at the consumer level. The entire culture is saturated in debt, and much of it is even disguised to look like something else, like saving money by not maintaining your capital equipment and infrastructure properly, or failing to pay your employees a decent wage so they can buy the products they make. You are borrowing on the future, betting that when that machine wears out, you'll be in some other line of business.

A little debt is OK, even beneficial, it allows us to bootstrap our investment by borrowing on future growth, like buying a new building for your store, or a new delivery truck for your bakery. I bought a house by borrowing, in the long run its cheaper than renting, even if its worth less than what I paid for it. You have to live somewhere.

I may borrow money to buy expensive clothing for my new career as a night club singer, but borrowing money for a vacation or a new TV is idiotic, but people do it, in fact, they are encouraged to do it, billions are spent in advertising to get them to do it. (Yeah, I know, nobody puts a gun to their head...)

As for printing money, its not just governments that do it. Our current economic mess is due to the financial system investing money that never existed into equity that won't ever exist; and borrowing money that didn't exist using worthless IOUs as collateral to borrow even more. Even a leftwing hippie knows that sooner or later that movie is going straight to video.

You don't need a printing press to make money, just go to a bank and sign a paper, and the computer puts some ones and zeroes into your account. They didn't even bother to print any, your signature
is worth money in some indeterminate future, in fact, they'll probably sell it tomorrow for even more non-existent greenbacks.

And these corporals of industry are the guys who are telling ME I "don't understand anything about economics"?