“Congress gives the people what they want.”
Actually I don’t totally agree with this statement. I think most people wanted the Macs to make reasonable loans. IMHO it was some people in Washington who wanted to included low income people to be able to share in the American dream. We can see the results of that. There were way to many people getting loans that had no business getting one.
What I see locally is that young people don't want to start out in a "starter" house and work their way up. They also tend to fill the driveway of the house they can't afford with motorized toys they can't afford.
In nearly four decades of dealing with JQ Public it has been my finding that all to many people spend just beyond their means.
“IMHO it was some people in Washington who wanted to included low income people to be able to share in the American dream. We can see the results of that. There were way to many people getting loans that had no business getting one.”
Wrong W — Wall Street, not Washington. The investment bankers wanted to make money selling loans to poor people (”subprime lending”) and then turned the loans into risky financial instruments. Then everyone else (your mutual fund, probably) bought them and it all looked good until the housing price bubble burst and they couldn’t collect on the loans.
Nobody in Washington had anything to do with it — it was the free market, plain and simple, and a lot of dumb smart bankers in New York City who still got to keep their million-dollar Christmas bonus anyway. Glad I invested in gold and oil instead!