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Subprime Scandal: We've long suspected the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission wasn't honest in examining events before the meltdown. But an ex-commissioner says the probe was actually a full-blown political cover-up. In a just-released book, former FCIC member Peter Wallison says that a Democratic Congress worked with the commission's Democratic chairman to whitewash the government's central role in the mortgage debacle. The conspiracy helped protect some of the Democrats' biggest stars from scrutiny and accountability while helping justify the biggest government takeover of the financial sector since the New Deal. Wallison's sobering, trenchantly written "Hidden in Plain Sight: What Really Caused...

Try as I might, I cannot rule out the possibility that the Democratic Party is some sort of elaborate performance art piece. One of those subversive ones where the real point is not the performance itself, but the reaction drawn from an unsuspecting audience. There was a cocktail party where the artist explained his vision, but we squares who are part of the patriarchal consumer culture weren’t invited. They are just seeing how far they can push this thing before we catch on. That must be it. There can be no other acceptable explanation for the straight-faced rationalizations many of...

With current talk of possible ‘meltdown’ in the world economy, trillion-dollar bailouts and the like, I was reminded of a newsletter article I wrote some 18 years ago.1 This was at a time when a major Australian newspaper had issued a dramatic call for ‘the churches to “preach” ethics and morals to the embattled Australian business community”. Why? Because they clearly saw the link between declining morality and the then-deteriorating economic health of our country Australia had been sinking into banana-republic-type foreign debt, then undergoing ‘the recession we had to have’.2 High-flying entrepreneurs who were public heroes in the 80s...

http://www.floppingaces.net/2008/09/27/bailout-negotiation-update/#comments Scroll down for an embedded link showing the Dems saying "There is nothing wrong here," or "Lets kill the messenger."

BBC News world economy debate BBC News held a debate on the current global financial crisis: World economy on the brink? The discussion was chaired by Andrew Neil and featured leading members of the financial world including: George Magnus, senior economic adviser, UBS Ken Courtis, former vice chairman of Goldman Sachs, Asia Terry Smith, chairman Collins Stewart investment banking group Jim Chanos, founder and president of Kynikos Associates, a dedicated short-selling hedge fund and BBC business editor Robert Peston.

The plan is an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- which together have issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt -- is broken. A report by outside investigators in July concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead investors, and critics have said Fannie Mae does not adequately hedge against rising interest rates.

Give credit where credit is due, blame the Democrats for their equality of outcome incompetence. A blind person could see more than the Democrat cronies who were running Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (FMs) up to now. There is none so blind as those who refuse to see. The Democrat’s ideological blinder was the Equality of Outcome policy they implemented to push home ownership to people who simply weren't capable of being homeowners. In 2003, the Bush Administration tried to head off the problem with the FMs but Democrats would have none of it, the NYT recorded their excuses for...

I have written here before that government interference in the economy delays the inexorable forces of economic laws, which in turn magnifies the corrections that must inevitably take place. More government regulation was not going to save Lehman Brothers from bankruptcy. It may have delayed bankruptcy, but reality would still triumph in the end to produce an even greater disaster. A government doing everything it can to forestall and conceal the most catastrophic pending collapse in economic history should not be trusted with anyone’s assets. The failure of Social Security will make Lehman Brothers look like chump change. Lehman did...

Messing With Markets Again by: Lance Nation, September 11, 2008 Currently the housing market has been of particular interest to politicians and the media. For example, the Bush Administration seized control of the two mortgage giants Fannie May and Freddie Mac. This takeover is an example of government control which hinders a free market society. “Consider the fate of mortgage lenders and homeowners,” writes Llewellyn Rockwell Jr. in Market During Crisis. “The markets became wise to the fact that loose credit led to a fantastic bubble and that trillions in traded mortgages might not be serviceable in an environment of...