[Toddsterpatriot]

All George Bush had to do was to make it clear in late '05 or early '06 that there would be no bailouts, that the banks' owners were 100 percent at risk for any bad investment decisions they had made.

That's an excellent idea. And the bad decisions the government pushed them into would be paid for by whom?

[Notary Sojac]

the bad decisions the government pushed them into

You know, I'm getting weary of hearing that.

I knew that the housing bubble was gonna pop when I saw the houses on my block go from the low $200's to the high $400's between 2001 and 2005. (And I sold out at the peak, too).

None of the people in my town who refi'd their houses and pissed away all the proceeds were tomato pickers or welfare moms. They were without exception white, middle class, employed people who were greedy or stupid or both.

When the true history of the housing bubble is written, I believe we'll find that the fraction of bubbliciousness coming from the CRA and associated programs was perhaps one-fifth, perhaps much less.