Jesse of Le Café Américain tells us why pretty much everybody is wrong about what is needed:

The most intractable part of the current financial crisis, and the ongoing problem of the US economy is the huge tax which is levied on the American public by its corporations, primarily in the financial and health care sectors, and a political system based on lobbyists and their campaign contributions.

There are hidden taxes and impediments to 'free trade' at every turn. The ugly truth is that American capitalism hates free markets, always seeking to overturn the rules and impose oligopoly if not outright monopoly through barriers to entry, manipulation of the political process, distortion of regulation, predatory pricing, brute force, and the usual slate of anti-trust practices.

Some of these 'hidden taxes' are the bonuses on Wall Street which require an increasing percentage of the financial 'action.' The credit cards fees and penalties levied by banks to support profits in a contracting economy. The Sales General & Administrative portion of the Income Statements of the pharmaceutical industry which only American consumers seem willing to pay. A health care system which is a monument to overspending, outrageous pricing, and greed.

The notion that "if only government would not regulate markets at all everything would be fine" is a variation of Rousseau's romantic notion of the noble savage which no one believes except those who wish to continue to act like savages, and those who get no closer to the real work of an economy than their textbooks. Anyone who believes that no regulation or self-regulation works well has never driven on a modern American freeway.