It wasn't a "mistake." It was a gun to the head. When the government (with all it's mechanisms for force and enforcement) tells you to lend to, you lend.
And who pays for that "mistake?"
All the people who played by the rules. They didn't buy homes that they could not afford but they sure as hell lost all that equity in their homes and are still dealing with the fallout of decisions they had no part in.
That "planned real estate/Freddie/Fannie" crash caused the BIGGEST theft of American wealth EVER. Not just bank bailouts but lost equity. It's impossible to know exactly how much wealth was looted and redistributed.
"But regardless, banks were still ultimately in charge of their own affairs"
Sounds a lot like blaming the victim. Oh, sorry our stupid, greedy, marxist, blame-whitey-to-get-minorities-free-houses plan caused the crash, but well you should have known better. And even if we stand outside your bank and protest and call you racist and stop you from doing business and threaten to go to your home where your children are, it's your fault for giving into to the our childish and dangerous desires.
We did know better but that doesn't stop the IRS or union goons.
Like all former Obama supporters, you only care now because "the bell now tolls for thee." Before, you thought someone else was going to get it.
Seems like your sudden conversion to conservatism (dubious)and biggest concern is that Hispanics are upsetting the black lock on "white guilt" and most favored minority status.
Tell me, if blacks were better off after four years of the same illegal machinations of Obama would you care? No, you wouldn't care about all his treachery. You only care because your ox was gored.
There were major banks that didn’t need or want to be bailed out by the government, and they were playing by the same rules as everyone else. The people who lost equity and homes through no fault of their own are the people that might have been protected if the banks had been either forced to take their losses or forbear from foreclosing to an extent. The people who bought houses they couldn’t afford would not be saved by any amount of forebearance.
Making it personal about me is sort of silly. I have marketable skills and I’ve been conservative in my finances — I’m doing fine for now, as is my immediately family. The future does look bleak, as it does for all Americans, in my opinion.
If you’re talking about “illegal machinations”, then no, no amount of being better off can compensate for the loss of our rights under the Constitution. As I tried to explain to my father in law, if we do not have the Constitution and the rule of law in force, then we are not free. We might be more comfortable as slaves/serfs, or not, but I’d certainly rather be poor but free, than “comfortable” in a state of slavery.
But yes, if Obama had put into place a set of free market policies, based on the Constitution, that had the effect of bringing about a growing and prosperous economy, and black Americans were participating in that growth and prosperity, then I’d have certainly not opposed him on that basis. I suppose you could say that if his socialist policies had succeeded in the same, then I also would still support him, but I now understand that to be an impossibility.