Sorry to hear you had to fold up shop like that. It sounds like you have plenty of talents to fall back on but that probably doesn't remove any of the sting of having all your hard work swept away. That said, US Politicians have plenty of misdeeds to answer for, but over-regulating the financial sector is really not among them. The requirement to prove that you have some sort of income before getting a house loan was one of the things deregulation "fixed". It was bank policy not government policy that "allowed millions of people making $50K a year to buy $500,000 homes they could not afford". Check out Alan Greenspan's testimony before congress. Its easy to find on youtube.
LOL: and who guaranteed all these bad loans? Who guaranteed all the mortgages by the Law? The US Government and the FED. Are you really surprised that banks were approving nearly all mortgages when Government GUARANTEED they if house owner stops paying, the Government will buy the mortgage?! That's the very purpose for which Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were created. To guarantee risky mortgages so even people who shouldn't get a house (lazy) would still get one. With the Government guarantee. The unintended consequence was (of course!) that banks started giving out loans to everyone.
Look for Peter Schiff videos on youtube from 2005/06/07 when he talks about it and everybody laughs at him.
The lesson is that you can't just ignore politics. You can't just leave politics to the politicians.
The same people who bitch about the government typically refuse to take control of the government. Democracy is bullshit and it's time for technical and scientific people to create a Platonic state.
The price good men pay for indifference to politics is having their businesses destroyed by evil men.
What mystifies me is how all of these smart technologists and scientists refuse to use their intelligence to take over the state.
People should have to pass science and math exams if they want to vote. It's that simple.