Where are Mommy and Daddy?

This posting is about the financial meltdown. I just came to understand that the biggest problem with the deregulation that was pursued by neo-liberal policies during the last 20-30 years was a silly adolescent identity crisis.
The fear of having a large tentacled government regulating "my unlimited ability to create wealth" (and therefore sabotaging the American dream of having a Mac Mansion, a heated garage and designer fashion) crashed in everyone's faces as it turned out that without a Mommy/Daddy-like governmental regulation we don't really regulate ourselves. There are theories of moral development that explain this (see Kohlberg's). We need to learn social rules from our parents. Our parents need to teach us not only what the social rules are, but also how to self-regulate. The economic crisis that has devastated the US and therefore the rest of the world is an example of how Machiavelli has always been right.
We need a parent-like government that takes care of us. But that does not mean that we are not co-responsible of our own actions. We need to be responsible citizens and unlike a bad parent that we cannot vote out, we can vote our government in every four years.
So, what is the bottom-line problem according to me? We don't want to grow up. We want to continue thinking that "someone else" will take care of that. Particularly, if by "that" we mean balancing local and statewide budgets, creating jobs, taking care of poverty and all its problems, etc, etc, etc.