Thursday, September 25, 2008

who to blame for the current financial crisis

If you find yourself looking for someone to blame for the current financial crisis. Don't worry, there's quite enough blame to go around. For the past several years, senators (mostly democratic senators) have turned a deaf ear to the warnings of coming problems; before that, President Bush did have a Republican congress during his first term and they didn't get anything done about this situation (although his defenders would say he was probably a bit distracted with 911 and the whole war thing); then you have President Clinton, who, according to most financial professionals in the know should take a majority of the blame. In Ann Coulter's last article ( http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=28714 ), she said, "Before the Democrats' affirmative action lending policies became an embarrassment, the Los Angeles Times reported that, starting in 1992, a majority-Democratic Congress "mandated that Fannie and Freddie increase their purchases of mortgages for low-income and medium-income borrowers. Operating under that requirement, Fannie Mae, in particular, has been aggressive and creative in stimulating minority gains.

Under Clinton, the entire federal government put massive pressure on banks to grant more mortgages to the poor and minorities. Clinton's secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Andrew Cuomo, investigated Fannie Mae for racial discrimination and proposed that 50 percent of Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's portfolio be made up of loans to low- to moderate-income borrowers by the year 2001."

Ann is right on the money here. She summed it up well. Although, again I would say there were other people involved that should take some of the blame. We even have President Carter who started this inevitable financial fiasco rolling with the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 which forced banks and lending institutions to make loans to the lower-income areas in their communities. This was fine as long as housing prices and values were rising, but markets can't rise forever and earlier this decade, when the housing market crashed, banks had to start with their "alternative accounting practices" until they completely ran out of money. Moronic laws/policies have a way of looking good in the short-term, but we need leaders who look out for our interest in the long-term. The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 made Carter look like a saint, but set into motion the travesty of stupidity we are now being called upon to bail out.

So, please rest assured that whatever politician you decide to blame, you'll probably be correct. They just love sticking their regulatory noses in things they don't completely understand so they can take credit for things they know are not of their doing and continue to gain power they have no business having - the jack asses.

Politicians got us into this mess and now they say for a mere $700,000 billion, everything will be OK. If you believe political intervention and your money can fix this, please see me after class so I can sell you some mars rocks I just had flown in from Antarctica.


If you'd like to sign a petition telling congress not to bail out stupidity, click here: http://nowallstreetbailout.com/

Labels: , , , , ,

Southern humor. Political humor, political cartoons, political videos and humorous videos, funny videos. Funny t-shirts, gifts, and rants. Commentary on technology, politics, lifestyles and other trends in the mid-south.