I don’t believe this article successfully argues its thesis. In fact, I find the article an exercise in logical rambling that sabotages its thesis by oscillating between two or more theories. If the article/author wants to claim that “too easy lending” was the underlying cause of the current economic malaise, then illegal immigrants and the CDOs that Bear Stearns wrote aren’t to blame, “too easy lending” is to blame. Focus = lacking.
So it’s your position that a creditable explanation for any exceedingly complex situation can’t possibly admit more than one contributing factor? If X is to blame, Y is flawless? Anything else is “rambling”?
On the other hand, if you don’t understand that too easy lending was a product of CDOs, then maybe I should have used smaller words.
I agree. Too many assertions that sound just a little off.
Too-easy-lending, encouraged by well-intentioned but economically-unsound government interference in the market, led to an out-of-control lending environment. The result was the housing bubble and a lot of mortgages that should never have been written. Throw in a heaping helping of greed by the mortgage brokers and loan originators who could write all kinds of crap loans without fear of living with the risk and you had the perfect recipe for disaster.
No, it’s not too easy lending by itself. Even with easy lending, you needed a target population to soak up those easy loans. Without the illegals to suck them up, those loans would not have been issued. You need a customer for your product. For subprime loans, it was illegal aliens.
That target was the housing needs of 20-30 million new illegal aliens (the real number, not the “11 million” that has been used since 2002).
See this article from over two years ago: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=33821
Some people just like to hear themselves talk with big words and long drawn out articles that really don’t say anything or get to the crux of the problem. Illegal is illegal and Mexicans are the problem.