Wall Street di’nt create the sub prime mess.
It was congress and Bill Clinton pushing
fannie mae into the high risk business.
As usual Savage is way off.
Wall Street went along willingly. As did so many so-called Republicans.
Yes, we all know this. The Dems created this mess with "affirmative action" by pressing these mortgage companies into giving loans to minorities who couldn't afford a house, but President Bush and Co. could've ended it by placing regulations (which were in place pre-Carter) on the market. Actually, it goes back even further than Clinton. Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia's "Savings and loan crisis" page:
Under financial institution regulation, which had its roots in the Depression era, federally chartered S&Ls were only allowed to make a narrowly limited range of loan types. Late in the administration of President Jimmy Carter, caps were lifted on rates and the amounts insured per account to $100,000. In addition to raising the amounts covered by insurance, the amount of the accounts that would be repaid was increased from 70% to 100%. Increasing Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (FSLIC) coverage also permitted managers to take more risk to try to work their way out of insolvency so the government would not have to take over an institution.
Carter left office in January 1981, a year in which 3,300 out of 3,800 S&Ls lost money. In 1982, the combined tangible net capital of the industry was $4 billion. The chartering of federally regulated S&Ls accelerated rapidly with the Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982, which was designed to make S&Ls more competitive and more solvent. S&Ls could now pay higher market rates for deposits, borrow money from the Federal Reserve, make commercial loans, and issue credit cards. They were also allowed to take an ownership position in the real estate and other projects to which they made loans and they began to rely on brokered funds to a considerable extent. This was a departure from their original mission of providing savings and mortgages.
Also, let's not forget about the Republican nominee for President's ties with the S&L scandal (Keating Five).