Let’s hope Sarah makes this point, because all I’ve heard from McCain is that it’s a failure of the regulators. It is precisely because of Clinton’s regulations mandating that minorities with no credit rating and no income be given loans that this entire subprime mortgage/banking meltdown has taken place. Politicians know as much about finances as pigs know about calculus.
Stop bashing Clinton on this. George Bush and the republican dominated congress had eight and six years respectively TO RECTIFY THESE POLICIES.
And they did not.
I thought you were going to say lipstick!
Yes, and 5 years ago President George W Bush proposed sweeping changes in regulations that would have moved the regulatory authority of the industry to the Treasury department and away from the incompetent congressional agency that had bungled the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac business to the point of nearly requiring a bailout then. Democrats blocked the regulatory overhaul.
New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae (September 2003)
The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.So FIVE YEARS AGO Bush proposed, and Democrats blocked, the very regulatory reforms that needed to be in place to prevent this mess.Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.
The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.