A majority of Americans say the pendulum needs to swing away from a less-regulated business environment to one with more government intervention to lift the country out of its morass, said a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll.

The poll showed that most of those surveyed favored increasing government intervention in the economy, and half blamed the lack of regulation for many of the nation's woes.

When asked whether the federal government should take an ownership stake in banks and other industries to save the private sector, 50 percent said yes, and 33 percent said no. Asked whether such moves would constitute a step toward socialism, about half said that they would, but just 20 percent said that this worried them "a lot."

A majority also said they favored President-elect Barack Obama's plan to engage in public works projects as a way to kick-start the economy, and 60 percent favored helping individual homeowners who face foreclosure. Forty-seven percent favored some sort of financial rescue for automakers, slightly more than the 42 percent who opposed a rescue.

Most Americans, 53 percent, opposed prohibiting companies that receive federal aid from paying executives more than $400,000 a year, the same salary as the U.S. president. Thirty-six percent favored such a measure. Yet 37 percent said year-end bonuses should be canceled for Wall Street executives whose firms are bailed out.

The survey of 1,000 adults was taken Saturday through Monday and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

LOS ANGELES TIMES