Recently had a chance to listen to a talk from some truly deep and profoundly geeky folks from Mr. desmoinesdem's alma mater on this whole “Market Meltdown” situation.
 
In a nutshell, a prevailing concern is that Moore's Law may have reached it's exponential limit.  Moore's Law, formulated in 1965, states that transistor density in integrated circuitry will double every approximately 18 months or so.
 
This has essentially held true from the 1950's through about 2006-2007, and now we have some fairly powerful computing devices, and the cybernetics revolution has driven the world economies into the stratosphere as a result.
 
However, it seems that a limit may have been reached on the density of transistors in any given chip, and now a plateau has been reached, if not an outright apex of a bell curve, in terms of cybernetic development. 
 
With this plateau/apex achieved, economic growth patterns are possibly affected significantly.
 
Some futurists (Kurzweil, et al) predict that there will be a molecular nano-tech revolution which will propel Moore's Law for decades, perhaps centuries, but this is not a consensus view by any means.
 
Without a breakthrough soon, things may slow to a crawl, and with economic downturn and rising energy costs, the actual cost of production will increase to the point that no new “improved” Integrated Circuit computing chips will ever see the kind of market share that popular computing devices enjoy at this very moment.

On the upside, as a result we may have to rely on paper ballots instead of Diebold electronic voting machines, with theft of elections by fascists somewhat difficult as a result. Downside, I would expect to see neo-cons and conservative Republicans trying to pump billions into the information tech sector to prevent just such a tragic outcome.  

Disclaimer-

(This is for the purposes of generating thought and discussion only, the author of this diary is neither an expert in economics, physics, or cybernetics.  He is into farming and blacksmithing.  And if we run out of oil, he has a nifty solar distillation apparatus that can make two gallons of fuel per day out of garbage.  Plenty of fuel to run his 1948 Allis-Chalmers tractor well into the 21st century, and waaay beyond HIS life expectancy.)

Paul Krugman, upcoming recipient for the Nobel Prize in Economics, wrote an interesting article in the NY Times carried by Common Dreams http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/02/02-1 yesterday.

The title of Mr. Krugman's article is “Bailouts for Bunglers”.  In this article, Mr. Krugman's major thesis is to ask the Obama administration to Nationalize the banks needing bailout capital, citing the “Lemon Socialism” rule.  In a nutshell, Lemon Socialism is where losses are socialized, profits are privatized.

I'm trying not to get personal here, but when they foreclosed on my friend's and family's businesses and homes, there was no safe”bailout” for them, they lost everything.  My oldest daughter is currently living in her car in Dallas, TX. One of my closest and oldest friends was forced to lay off half a dozen loyal employees into this economy with very little hope of finding another job as an auto mechanic.

No one rewarded any of my friends and family for the decisions they made which forced them into these circumstances, and I'm not asking anyone to reward these folks. It just seems criminal that those whose unbridled greed created the current market meltdown should receive compensatory bonuses for a “job well done”?

President Roosevelt saved capitalism for another 75 years when he initiated his plan of economic recovery.

Maybe President Obama should just let it go down in flames, I'm already paying to help out my kid, and I paid my friend more than it was worth to have him help me fix the brakes on my car recently (I could have done the job myself), I'll be damned if I'm willing to help foot the bill to pay some Wall Street banker a multi-million dollar salary for helping create this mess. 

Make the bankers give up their homes to the folks who lost theirs, I say.  Maybe if the financial wizards of Wall Street had to spend the winter living in THEIR cars they could come up with a solution all on their own. no help from the government.