This is an excellent read from The American Prospect on just how we got into the financial mess we’re in today. It’s from an explicitly liberal magazine, but it’s very well argued, I think, and goes into a lot of detail. The kicker? It was published over a year ago.
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Did you notice YouTube pulled that immensely popular video (the one that in great detail spelled out the Democrat’s ownership of this failure, starting with the ’smoking gun’ Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 that was kicked into high gear by Bill Clinton in 1995, continuing on through 2005, when Republicans tried to clean up the Fannie Freddy fiasco but were turned away by Franks, Dodd, Raines, Maxine Waters, Gregory Meeks, Lacy Clay, Arthur Davis (just to name a few))?
That same video that was so damning to Democrats, so much so that Time Warner (a heavy O! contributor) complained to g00gle (another heavy O! contributor, and the owner of YouTube) about some of the songs used in the video. It was yanked at 3:45 PM ET today.
But guess what?
It’s BACK!!!!111!!!!!!
Gee, that’s nice. Now how about actually reading the article I linked, and commenting on that? Nah, that’s probably too much to ask.
Hint: Fannie/Freddie were more symptom than cause.
Yes, I read the article. Most barfworthy…
Let’s see…Chris Dodd…does Countrywide ring a bell?
And ‘refinance’ at-risk mortgages? Mortgages that should never have happened in the first place? If, you know, people were properly vetted to see if they qualified for mortgages in the first place?
No sympathy, sorry, for those who borrowed money they could never pay back.
Why should I (as a taxpayer) help fund someone’s mortgage who made such a poor choice? Or, for that matter, fund a bailout to people who don’t deserve one?
As I commented earlier..
No more bailouts.
The free market punishes poor performances. Bailouts negate that corrective punishment; therefore, bailouts are counterintuitive to free markets.
Let the fuckers jump. Let the market crash. You noticed today’s rebound? I blame the failure of the bailout.
The correction was overdue.
It’s the only way to defeat socialism.
Actually, the article is right on, mostly.
But the part Serr8d quoted is indeed barfworthy!
Remember, according to Vice President Cheney, deficits don’t matter! Think about that. Where is he anyway? Who knows? He is always in an “undisclosed location.”
The article neglected to mention the Bank of Japan…but it was fairly thorough. It failed to call out criminals and demand they be arrested, though. For shame.
But yeah, government lying about inflation to keep the public in the dark that interest rates are continually below the real the rate of inflation is NOT indicative of any sound free market policy that I’m aware of. Something smells funny…
It turns out that most House Republicans are not patriots after all. Apparently all they want are… tax cuts. AArrgh! Who cares if the USA is bankrupt?
Arrest them all.
Why should I (as a taxpayer) help fund someone’s mortgage who made such a poor choice? Or, for that matter, fund a bailout to people who don’t deserve one?
Self-interest? If the consequences to you (as a taxpayer) of not doing so are worse than doing so, do you cut off your own nose to spite your face? Probably so, I’m guessing.
No doubt there are a lot of bad actors here who are going to be helped by a bailout. But if the alternative is punishing a lot of non-bad actors for the actions of the bad actors (in the name of “punishing” the bad actors), then count me out.
And, of course, there are way to limit the amount of benefit given to those bad actors, which is what some in Congress have been trying to do (while others try to use it as an excuse to cut capital gains taxes…)
What exactly is the evidence that the claims of the Bush administration (once again) that “the sky is falling” are true?
If we don’t “act”, what happens? The credit orgy is over. Businesses fail. Jobs are lost. People go broke. People lose their homes.
Maybe. Then, we can get to work rebuilding our infrastructure, figuring out how to produce a sustainable economy and live within our means. A possibility? A pipe dream? Again, maybes.
I don’t have a crystal ball.
But giving control of the treasury to the bankers now likely will eventually lead to option one from above; with no shot at option two.
Were ALL bad actors if we allow ourselves to believe that we can continue to wave our magic paper at Chinese goods forever.