So, AIG is thinking about suing the US Government. The entire concept of that action makes me so angry I'm speechless but thankfully Mat Taibbi isn't . I won't launch my own tirade about this story because Mr. Taibbi covers it beautifully. However, I think AIG's potential actions make a good backdrop for the tale of my conversion.I think many of us have flashpoints in our lives. Events that change the way we view the world in some fundamental way. These events can be large, like the death of JFK, or small, like an act of kindness from a stranger. My flashpoint was much more geeky, the collapse of our financial system. This was the event that moved me from a hard line fiscal conservative to a member of Elizabeth Warren's fan club. This change was not easy. Ideas long entrenched would not be overcome without a fight. But if Alan Greenspan could be converted , what chance did I have?It was December of 2008 when I came home from 10 months in Egypt. I had been deployed as part of a peace keeping mission on the border of Egypt and Israel. I had heard that the economy had hit the skids and all of my conservative sources ensured me that the lap dogs of the Federal government, Fannie May and Freddie Mac, were to blame. They made banks give loans to bums that couldn't pay the bills and the rest of us were left to pick up the tab. This sounded as right as anything I had heard. Government interference in the market was the only thing that could have possibly created a failure this complete. The free market wasn't perfect but it damn sure was self correcting. A company making bad loans to people wouldn't be long for this world because the free market would find a way to punish them. In this way my internal logic was complete. I was sure only poor people and the government could screw things up this badly. Enter onto the scene one of my oldest friends Ryan.Ryan and I have been friends ever since we got separated in 7grade science for talking too much. He was a bleeding heart liberal and I was an intelligent conservative. It never bothered me that his political ideology was completely wrong. We had fun debates and could at least agree that The Simpsons was the greatest show ever made. When I returned from Egypt we picked up where we left off, debating the issues of our day. Ryan was wrongly asserting that systemic corruption and wild gambling by private banks ran our economy into the ground. Further more he had the crazy notion that had we not gutted government oversight of the banks the crash would not have happened. I of course knew better. That is until he recommend two Frontline reports “ Inside the Meltdown ” and “Breaking the Bank” . Later I would watch “ TheWarning ” but by then the damage was done. My entire worldview of the inherent good of unregulated markets was crushed. The corruption of Wall Street, the failure of regulators and the abuse of the borrowers was laid bare. I was wrong, I had been wrong, I was never right. It hit me like a ton of bricks but the evidence was overwhelming.The crash of 2008 would stay with me. I am quite frankly obsessed with the failure of the markets. I have become a harsh critic of both Wall Street greed and a government that has acted as their lap dog. The more research I do the more sure I am that the financial industry must be brought in line. " Inside Job " did an amazing job of outlining the conflict of interest that exists in the academic disciple of economics. Neil Barofsky's book “ Bailout ” outlined the failure of TARP to help the little guy and the incestuous relationship between the federal government and Wall Street. Everything Matt Taibb i has written makes me want to laugh and cry. I feel a need to consume all of this information. Not only because it changed how I view the world but because it gives me a vision for how to fix it.