There is plenty of blame and responsibility for the current trouble in the nation’s economy to go around, but recent actions put in place by the federal government to fix it eventually will work, though the country may experience a deep recession in the process, according to a panel of local financial industry experts.

“I think the regulators and the authorities throughout the world have finally got it,” said Ben Miller, managing director, research and below investment grade securities, at Unum Group. “Just in the U.S. alone, there have been 16 actions that the government has taken — these will eventually work.”

Dr. Bento Lobo, UC Foundation associate professor of finance at UTC, hosted the event on the university’s campus, and at one point referred to a student’s description of the government’s $700 billion bailout package as a “financial anti-depressant.”

The panelists, which included a financial adviser, a professor, a banker and a portfolio manager, dissected the current strife in the nation’s economy and across the globe, assigning responsibility for the crisis and and offering their assessments about the nation’s potential for recovery.

“My argument is in this particular case, the government is the largely responsible for creating the situation and only the government has a balance sheet big enough to effectively deal with the situation,” said Christopher Hopkins, vice president of investments for Barnett & Co.

The panelists debated blame for the crisis but for the most part they agreed that the government’s current approach to regulation should change to focus less on concerns over Wall Street and more on the problems facing American consumers.

They discussed the failure of Washington Mutual, the sale of Wachovia Corp., the tightening of the global credit markets and the potential effects of the government’s rescue package.

“I am a lot more concerned (about the economy) as a citizen than as a banker,” said Jon Long, senior vice president of SunTrust Bank. He handles the client relationships of regional middle market companies with revenues up to $750 million. “It seems the policy was geared to bailing out Wall Street and not Main Street.”

Dr. Ziad Keilany, an economics professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, said he has been studying the U.S. economy for the past 40 years.

“This is the worst I have ever seen, and I would say that our blind faith in the free market is to blame,” he said.

At one point a student asked the panel if the country was in the midst of a normal market correction or if it is a financial apocalypse.

“It’s different this time,” Mr. Hopkins answered. “We are currently engaged in a global illiquidity of the likes we’ve never seen.”

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