[r9etb]

[Greenspan] is blamed for allowing the housing bubble to develop as a result of his low interest rates and lack of regulation in mortgage lending.

I don't see how Greenspan can be blamed for lack of regulation.... Isn't that a Congressional responsibility?

[mgc1122]

The Brits have done an outstanding of naming names ... a pity the American press is still in lapdog mode.

[marshmallow]

They could have added the names of Peter Schiff and Ron Paul to “six who saw it coming” and the name of Soros should be added to the list of those who caused it along with many others too numerous to mention.

[Drango]

Barney Frank belongs somewhere near the top of the list.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Bawney Fwank belongs on that list.

His absences is very twoubling.

[silverleaf]

Soros avoided them because he didn’t “really understand how they work

horse spittle

[MosesKnows]

a man-made disaster

Do da name "Barney Frank" ring a familar note?

[free_life]

Barney Frank

[Star Traveler]

Are the “voters” anywhere on that list?

[Liz]

BINGO

Clinton shares at least some of the blame for the current financial chaos. He beefed up the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act to force mortgage lenders to relax their rules to allow more socially disadvantaged borrowers to qualify for home loans.

In 1999 Clinton repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, which ensured a complete separation between commercial banks, which accept deposits, and investment banks, which invest and take risks.

The move prompted the era of the superbank and primed the sub-prime pump. The year before the repeal sub-prime loans were just 5% of all mortgage lending. By the time the credit crunch blew up it was approaching 30%.

[Army Air Corps]

Wow, they actually name Bill Clinton and Chris Dodd!

[a fool in paradise]

The American public - There's no escaping the fact: politicians might have teed up the financial system and failed to police it properly and Wall Street's greedy bankers might have got carried away with the riches they could generate, but if millions of Americans had just realised they were borrowing more than they could repay then we would not be in this mess. The British public got just as carried away. We are the credit junkies of Europe and many of our problems could easily have been avoided if we had been more sensible and just said no.

[kidd]

The whole article is a load of crap.

It is meant to bolster the Democrat argument that greedy corporations and eeeevil republicans are to blame.

No mention of the millions of people who couldn’t pay their mortgage.

No mention of Clinton-era measures that enabled these risky loans (enhanced Community Reinvestment act, etc).

No mention of the purposeful misdirection by Frank and Dodd. No mention that Bush attempts to provide more oversight to Fannie/Frddie was blocked by these two.

And no mention that Obama was part of a legal team that forced Citibank to provide loans to risky lenders in Chicago.

[NVDave]

I would add to the list of culprits:

- the CEO’s of the monoline insurers
- the quants who created the VaR model
- economists of every stripe up and down Wall Street and in the housing industry
- the National Ass’n of Realtors

And to the list who saw it coming:

- David Einhorn, Greenlight Capital
- Bill Ackman, Pershing Square
- Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Benoit Mandelbrot

And from quite a remove of time:

- Hyman Minsky
- Irving Fisher

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

This recent debacle is what I call the first sack of the American public. There was a vast amount of wealth accumulated by the American public post WWII. The politicians seeing the changing demographics and aware of the various ethnic coalitions need the money to buy the votes. The politicians cannot yet actually seize our wealth so they do it indirectly. The pols will now bail out the Third Worlders and we get to thank them.

[VinL]

Our problem is not who created the financial crisis, the problem is that bi-partisan Washington is in the process of using our money to conceal its complicity. And the fact that these bi-partisan Washingtonians can do just that- demonstrates how we have absolutely no power over this oligarchy that has taken over our government.

Those who are pointing partisan fingers are playing into the Washingtonians' hands- if they at least can keep the people split along a partisan divide, they don't have to worry that the citizens will unite against the real enemy- the Wall St/Washington oligarchy that controls our country.

Vin f/k/a/ wegotsarah.