What we are witnessing this week is the collapse of the capitalist economic system as it exists in its present form. It has failed. The failure will become more and more apparent as this year turns into the next.

The reasons for the collapse are many, and they will be examined for some time to come. One thing is certain and that is that laissez faire capitalism, a goal of the extreme right which was on the way to being implemented by total deregulation of the economy's many facets, cannot work in a global economy. Another certainty is that everything is connected, from the shareholder to the manufacturer to the assembly line worker.

For an economy to prosper the goal must be "win-win-win."

A new economic system will emerge from all this turmoil. It is going to take a long time, but it will surface. It will include government participation like we have never seen before. It will make the taxpayers shareholders on Wall Street. It will force Wall Street, and especially the banking sector, to consider the well-being of main street when it makes decisions about how it operates.

More specifically and with focus on what is happening today, I fear we are witnessing the possible destruction and loss of an entire manufacturing sector. The domestic automobile industry and its many suppliers, dealers and auxiliaries are being thrown away. This is a total of ten percent of full-time employment in the United States. That industry accounts for thirty percent of the tax revenues in two states and over fifteen percent in two more states.

If we lose that industry, we lose-lose-lose.

This will forever be the legacy of the eight years of the Bush-Cheney administration, even more so than the blot of the Iraq war.