Posted on 11/27/2008 4:36:04 AM PST by Joiseydude
Remember during the campaign how this whole economic mess, according to the Obama camp, was the fault of the Bush administration and the past 8 years? They had all those excellent slogans… we can’t afford four more years of the same… remember? I don’t want to say that a lot of people bought that crap, but anytime you tried to talk about actual economic history and how this mess evolved, most people glazed over and muttered “past 8 years… more of same… must change.”
Well, just this Sunday while enjoying a piping hot cup of joe and a danish, I was reading through the Sunday papers. Being desirous of news from all sides, I always start with the New York Times. Eventually I finish up with Guns & Ammo. The Times had a story on the front page entitled Citigroup Pays for a Rush to Risk.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
“Did Democrats Have Something to Do with the Economic Troubles?”
How about EVERYTHING ?
I don't think the workings of the economy interested him much. Hence, although his administration made some early attempts to control the housing/lending orgy, it also abandoned them easily and without a lot of fuss.
Granted the Arabs,Chavez,Putin and Ahmadinnerjacket hate us but they are suffering now because of the oil bubble burst.
Our liberal Democrats are willing to cripple America in order to win—but foreign America haters who still live and breath American dollars?
A socialist superpower with a super advanced military beholden to the nations holding our IOUs would make an excellent mercenary force available to the highest bidder.
Much to think about.
Reagan lowered taxes and got rid of Carter's 55 MPH AFIK.
People seem to get confused about what the problem really is because it is kind of complex. Deregulation did not cause it and there is nowhere anyone can point to say this law made all these banks go nuts. It didn’t happen. If that did happen, the housing market as a whole would not have responded to rising interest rates, which it most certainly did.
We actually had two problems that fed each other. The first one was the housing bubble that is the result of artificially low interest rates; which by itself would not have caused the financial system to collapse. The second problem was the collapse of the mortage backed securities market, which did lead to the collapse of the financial system. So why did the MBS market collapse?
Subprime lending couldn’t exist within the framework of accepted lending standards. And of course, the main culprits, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were exempt from the banking acts because they could never hope to carry out their charters under them without the government funding it. It wasn’t until Fannie and Freddie were put under these acts, abscent of government funding, that the whole house of cards started coming down and their main partner in crony capitalism, Countrywide, was the first to collapse.
Congress knew that in order to get what it wanted it had to have these government entities out there doing it so it would imply some sort of government guarantee, and they would buy up the mortgages as fast as the banks who were involved, either volunarily or by coersion, could write them, and then spread them around as secuirites to keep the government off the hook. And to make it more of a reality, they had to get high credit ratings for these instruments so they chopped them up and mixed good with bad to imply less risk and/or to obscure what was really behind them. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to get investors willing to pony up the cash.
In the end, it had nothing to do with industry wide deregulation, but everything to do with the government trying to get something for nothing and not following its own rules to get there. If the diversified securities had not been there, we would have had some pain with the bursting of the housing bubble, but it would not have lead to the collapse of the financial system.
Yeah,MY BS radar went ballistic too!
Has to be either a typo or a stroke.
The sad fact is, the Conservatives NEVER had a majority in the House or the Senate.
Bush is not a Conservative, but he could have and most likely would have been more so if the small Republican majorities in the House and Senate were not polluted with RINOs.
I can’t believe you said that about Ronald Reagan. He lowered taxes, but couldn’t control the dim congress spending. Tip O’Neill said “The Reagan Budget is Dead on Arrival.” everytime the budget was submitted.
It was Nixon who gave us the 55 mph speed limit.
It is obvious our government schools don’t teach history anymore.
They could have been in collusion, but I'd like to think they were simply on the same side for different reasons.
OPEC pressed their hand too far. They broke the back of an economy that was strong enough to handle the BS mortgage crisis but persistently high and rising oil prices finally tipped it over center. Now they are reeling in an attempt to keep their US economy sugar daddy going with a socialist green head anti-petroleum leader coming on stage.
If OPEC did this on purpose, they didn't get the outcome they desired.
Correction.....Nixon's 55 MPH. At least I knew it wasn't Reagan's
I've had thoughts along those lines ever since I learned first what caused the mortgage instability, then remembered what caused the horrendous increase in crude oil prices: Speculation.
Someone of Soros' ilk would recognize the precarious position of the huge number of overextended mortgages, and would have the resources to engage in crude oil speculation on a massive scale to cause the increase in prices.
This would cause many of those overextended mortgagees to lose control of their budgets and default on their loans. I normally hesitate to use the word "conspiracy," but I think a convincing case might be made here. Whatever the case, I've never believed Soros was a positive influence in America.
So the government,which can arrest and physically punish deadbeats,giving it supreme financial security (like a mafia loanshark),got involved in the financial free markets,the fix was in—cause what can a private bank do without the gun the GSEs have to collect debts?
And when liberal Democrat political correctness forbids the GSEs to use the gun,
The collapse!
Democrats claim deregulation is the cause of the meltdown however they overwhelmingly supported and Clinton signed into law the deregulation bill they claim is responsible. The deregulation bill had absolutely nothing to do with the creation of subprime loans but it did have a CRA requirement at the insistence of the Dems.
Very frustrating that the Republicans took the blame for the meltdown. Worse yet, those Democrats most responsible for the meltdown were in charge of fixing it. Dodd and Frank were the Dems front men working on the Bailout. No wonder the initial bailout bill had ACORN provisions.
The 2008 election was an embarrassment. We allowed the Democrats to hang the subprime collapse right around our necks like boat anchors.
Does a bear use the woods for a toilet?
Does the sun rise in the east?
Is Obama an illegal?
When an ignorant four year old wants to know where babies come from does he believe his biologist father who explains the process of fertilization,conception and pregnancy or his ditzy mother who tells him about the stork?
America is infested with ignorant four year olds and they are being raised by ditzy liberal Democrats.
Dad is just their to pay the bills.
Yup, in an election where the voters who went for Obama wanted to hear economy and jobs, all we wanted to talk about was Wright-Ayers-Hussein. It was a losing strategy.
Another losing strategy was clinging onto not taxing people who make over $250K. When in fact Obama was going to expire the 2003 tax cuts which will raise the federal income tax rates on everyone including low income and middle income. Did McCain ever mention that? Nope! Instead McCain got rope-a-doped with the $250K figure and made himself look like the stereotypical rich evil Republican only out to protect his rich evil friends. The Democrats' duped the McCain campaign good with that one.
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