Posted on 01/18/2011 10:15:10 AM PST by Blaine Fabin
Right up until that fateful week in September of 2008 when Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac,Merrill Lynch and AIG all imploded, most of the media, government and financial professionals either could not or would not acknowledge the economic disaster that was unfolding before their eyes.
Of course now that the horse has escaped these same visionaries have been eager to provide their expertise in locksmithing so as to determine how best to close the barn door. A casual stroll through your local book store leaves one practically assaulted from the sheer volume of explanations and witch hunts.
The whole exercise is reminiscent of the classic mystery board game Clue...
(Excerpt) Read more at barnhartadvisory.wordpress.com ...
Bush, of course.
Who caused the financial crisis?
More like Professor Lavender with the Community Reinvestment Act in the House chamber.
... with a buttplug, in the bathhouse.
lol
Basically this article gets it right in so far as the author tells you straight out that we did not have a free market to begin with so it is ridiculous to blame a lack of regulation or to blame a free market.
With socialism you always no where the blame lies being that government owns and controls the market fully.
With free market capitalism you also know where the blame lies being that business owners are responsible for their own decisions.
With fascism though it is never so simple. Fascism leaves supposed ownership still with individual business owners but instead simply intertwines government with business so much that the market starts to operate on political agendas instead of sound free market business principles.
It is already well known and easily proven in any debate that political agendas were being run through the markets that crashed. From the CRA passed in Congress by democrats and then later even strengthened to the brown shirts at ACORN extorting banks and bullying them into following a political agenda to the GSEs (government sponsored entities filled with government cronies who tainted the market with political agendas and corruption.
Who Caused the Financial Crisis?
The fascism of the progressive movement with their accomplishes in the democrat party.
Bush? I thought it was global warming that caused it.
It wasn't mortgages. Mortgages were just the canary in the coal mine. Mortgages always take it on the chin in an economic downturn. And they always take some banks down with them. If the economy had continued strong and unemployment low, the mortgages would have been paid.
True, but Bush caused global warming.
Who Caused the Financial Crisis?
DODD and FRANK!
ML/NJ
This SOB should have resigned. Bet he'll keep getting reelected.
Read what his partners in crime had to say on this subject: rightamerican.wordpress.com
Don't go there if you have high blood pressure.
"...we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac and in particular at Fannie Mae under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Frank Raines.” Rep. Maxine Waters D., Calif
In large part, it was Moody’s and S&P laundering DDD junk into AAA bonds that pension funds could invest in.
Without Moody’s, no crisis. Who owned 20 percent at the time? Warren Buffet.
No AAA rating, no demand for the bonds. AIG doesn’t unwittingly (at first) sell CDS’s on the bonds thinking, “Sell insurance on AAA rated bonds? That’s free money. Not a lot of free money, but if you sell it in volume it is.”
Everything hinged on the ratings. Calpers and hundreds of pension funds and annuities can’t buy the crap.
Now, having said that, the absolute responsibility rested with Goldman, Deutche Bank, UBS, BofA, and others that were giving half a million to illegal immigrant strawberry pickers knowing damn well they were going to sell the loan 15 minutes after they signed the loan docs.
Moody’s, S&P, and Fitch, however, had their raison d’etre of determining what was backing the bonds and didn’t do it. When raters in those firms actually DID catch it, they were told to re-rate the bonds, and ‘squint when doing so’.
Colonel Mustard was my favorite.
“Congress’ Financial Mess”- Walter Williams
Professor David Henderson, research fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, writes about regulation in “Are We Ailing From Too Much Deregulation?” in Cato Policy Report (November/December 2008). The Federal Register, which lists new regulations, annually averaged 72,844 pages between 1977 and 1980. During the Reagan years, the average fell to 54,335. During the Bush I years, they rose to 59,527, to 71,590 during the Clinton years and rose to a record of 75,526 during the Bush II years. Employees in government regulatory agencies grew from 146,139 in 1980 to 238,351 in 2007, a 63 percent increase. In the banking and finance industries, regulatory spending between 1980 and 2007 almost tripled, rising from $725 million to $2.07 billion. So here’s my question: What are we to make of congressmen, talking heads and news media people who tell us the financial meltdown is a result of deregulation and free markets? Are they ignorant, stupid or venal?
http://townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/01/14/congress_financial_mess
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