I always feel a little ignorant went it comes to finance and the economy. That is, until I sit with a typical group of Americans and listen to them talk about either. If you feel a little less than enlightened on the big picture yourself, Good Magazine has a simple chart (which cops the Bill Clinton campaign slogan from the ’92 election) to fill you in on some of the basics. If you’re putting the pieces together intelligently (the corporate media has no reason to want to help you with this), it would be hard to believe that things will get much better before they get a lot worse. But don’t worry. This whole capitalism thing is probably a dying paradigm. We’re probably ready for a smart economy. We just need to rework that pesky social contract a bit. I think there are reasons you don’t here the words “Economics” and “Ethical” in the same sentence very often these days.