It Was The Federal Government, Stupid!

If I have to listen to our federal government blame the banks and Wall Street one more time for the economic meltdown, my head is going to explode.

First of all, President Obama's "we knew the economy we inherited was bad but we were surprised at how bad it was" is such b.s. Obama was not surprised by anything. Half of his staff have spent their careers in other administrations and knew everything that was going on in Washington and the country, especially related to the economy. (Geithner, Bernanke, Regional Fed chiefs, etc.)
If you will concede that the root of America’s problem is a mismanaged economy then you must go back to 1977 when Pres Carter signed the CRA into law, which forced banks to approve low interest mortgages to people who were unqualified and eventually couldn’t make their payments. Carter’s heart might have been in the right place because interest rates were as high as 20% so he was trying to make housing affordable. (I got a 14.6% mortgage in 1978.) Big mistake. Reagan did nothing to recall the dangerous law, neither did Bush 41, nor did Clinton who in fact in 1995, prior to his re-election bid, revised the CRA law to lower the standards even further for, by now, what amounted to unsecured mortgages.
Then, the Bush you love to hate was also complicit because even though he warned Congress as early as 2003 that Freddie and Fannie, which sold these junk mortgages, were a train wreck about to happen; but he would not stand up and stop the madness. This was the first of several times Barney Frank proclaimed that both Freddie and Fannie "were on solid financial ground." It was obvious that Blowhard Frank was so wrong it was difficult to believe he made his evaluation while he was conscious. Nevertheless, rather than do the politically unpopular thing and tell low income people the golden mortgage goose stopped laying eggs, President Bush backed down from challenging Barney and slunk away into the shadows. Soon, $700 billion of these bundled toxic assets were sold to China.

And here we are conveniently blaming poor George who didn’t have the brains, nerve, or moral depth to do the right thing and stop or at least minimize the stupidity.

Ever notice how both the Democrats and GOP, which never agree to anything, seem to march in lockstep to always blame the banks rather than each other? The reason is that the House Banking Committee for years has been responsible for oversight of the banking rules but failed in its duties to review and slow down the progress of the CRA runaway train.

In the final analysis, the Congress, replete with Democrats and Republicans, ENABLED the banks to take advantage of loopholes in the CRA. Had Congress been vigilant, perhaps the housing bubble and trillions in bundled derivative crap would have been minimized in their infancy. Had that been the case probably the US wouldn't have elected and now have to deal with a President struggling through his on-the-job-training. Following Bush's presidency should have been the best situation ever for Obama because 'you can’t fall off the floor'...although, thus far Pres Obama is making me rethink that adage.
Albiwan...