The Living Dead Economy

The way I see it, Capitalist Consumerism is like a terminally ill cancer patient who enjoys decade long spans of health and vitality, who has regular relapses, occasionally sudden and life-threatening enough to have the need to be hooked up to life support, the Federal Government. His body is constantly feeding on itself, and when it looses it's vigor, the feeding becomes worse, sometimes catastrophic, as is being seen right now.
The value of our dollar has dropped significantly, millions of homes have been foreclosed on or are in the process, our own automobile industry is crashing because no one can afford new cars, unemployment is at a near two-decade high, two million jobs disappeared this year, and many more are expected to vanish next year, and businesses are vanishing nearly as fast.
Bailouts and economic revitalization packages are the common lexicon going into the new year. I know our patient will still put out of this--for now--but how long can be keep this up? Our economy will crash again and many, mostly the poor will continue to suffer the fallout. I am by no means an economist, but I am intelligent enough to know when something is amiss, and CEO's getting paid millions for running their company and our country into the ground is a sure sign something isn't right.
The only way I can see that our ailing economy may be revived (although not necessarily cured), is by some serious government regulation of the potential problems that can cause situations like this, currently the unmonitored and de-regulated lending practices in America. Consumers overall are too stupid to monitor their own own spending practices, so you must guide them into the necessary avenues for responsible use of their paychecks, whether they like it or not. Mortgaging a 250 k house, two vehicles and other toys on a 60 grand salary is asking for trouble. But they think they 'deserve' it, giving the illusion of freedom of choice, believing they are free because they can decide between a grande latte or a mochachinno. Hint: not the same as the choice between oppression and tyranny and a truly democratic nation with laws that protect ALL our citizens.
But isn't this leaning toward *gasp* fascism? Isn't socialism a virulent evil that needs to be stamped out before it ruins our beautiful nation? Not if you still have a free, open market, where the choices are not controlled by the government, and credit is monitored, not given freely with pages of fine print really to destroy your economic life with the first slip up. And we need to get rid of those pesky paycheck advance services with their 400% interest rates. Not even the mob does that to people, however uninformed and desperate enough to believe such a service is going to save you in the long term from the financial practices that got you into the mess in the first place. I'm sorry, consumers, but you're not smart enough to spend your own paychecks, and the companies you give it to are too greedy to be trusted with it. Something must be done, before our patient, currently in the throes of impending death, isn't able to be revived.