We are once again up against that real barrier. Hence the issue of regulation/deregulation/reregulation is, at this point, immaterial -- at least if one is talking about new restraints on capital as a solution to the immediate problem. Restabilization of capitalism requires what has always been the saving function of crises: a vast amount of existing capital must be extinguished to enable a smaller surviving amount to begin again the process of blind, crazed accumulation. But the real-world suffering that would accompany such a massive "devaluation of capital" -- the lost jobs, housing, self-respect, and the misery, even starvation, which would follow on a global scale today -- would mean the end of the U.S. model of capitalism, since the rest of the world would never accept such a result. What we need and must fight for is real regime change: that is a socialism for the 21st century.