Hey, I really appreciate your thoughtful and thorough response.

Great, thanks for saying so!

I freely admit that my personal understanding of finance and economics is limited, but I am very interested in learning more.

I would say the same, on both counts.

You seem to have a much better handle on it, I'd like to ask: how do you think that jobs might better be created?

Hm, I was hoping you would ask how it is that I can make myself appear to have a handle on economics, despite having no formal training.

As to creating jobs in a better way, I am afraid I don't know. Perhaps the way they are created now is not so bad. People look to increase their wealth by giving strangers stuff they want, so they start businesses to do that. If they have some success, they offer other strangers jobs to scale the process up and increase their wealth even more.

Many people, like Mr. Blodget, look to the government to make things better. I tend to think the government would do well to get out of the way. Another business magazine tells us that government is actively shutting down and stifling the very businesses that are creating jobs.

Also, I understand that credit allows people to buy much more expensive things, but how might the credit system be implemented in a way that does not lend itself to another financial crisis?

It's all I can do to balance my checkbook, I would not dream of designing a credit system. I will observe that government is also up to its elbows in banking; it is one of the most regulated industries. This was true before the crisis, but after the crisis the answer was obvious: moar regulation.

If you pm me a mailing address, I would be happy to send you a book that provides a fascinating example of how credit -- in this case, microcredit -- can help pull people out of poverty.