Tuesday - September 30, 2008

It all started with Jimmah Cartah

And it was a decent, compassionate idea. Because it was small. But then PC took over. And so did Slick Willy.

And under Clinton it went straight into hell. And today brokerages and banks are dropping like flies. Which is why it HAS to be Bush’s fault.

Here is a 12 minute video that explains the roots of this financial mess. And puts the blame squarely where it belongs. Watch it, link it, get it out there everywhere.

I found it over at C&S, but I hope it’s viral everywhere by now.

Since I’m really got my cheese in the grater over this ENTIRE mess, I’ll throw in a couple bits that lean the other way:

Bush has been president for the last 8 years. He had a Republican congress for 6 of those years. Bush and McCain both tried to get some regulation going on. Nothing happened. WTF? It could not have been stopped. The Republicans wimped out. Perhaps because they feared being called racists. For the 7 trillionth time. But there it is. They had the power, some of their people saw the problem coming, and they did not push a fix through when they could not have been stopped.

The packaging of these securities was done deliberately to hide the risk. The manipulation of ratings of mortgage-backed securities could not have been accidental. The failure of the rating houses like S&P and Moody’s to demand risk level transparency for each mortgage backed security before rating them is what truly resulted in the crash. Nope. They just helped pad them up and pass them on. Hey, they’re government backed mortgages, so they must be just dandy.  (not totally sure this point is really all that good. But they went along with the scam when they could have dropped the dime)

Also lost in the background noise: the whole speculation market. If it wasn’t running utterly rampant, do you think there would be several popular television shows running on various channels, all telling you how to “Flip That House”? Anybody who could scrap toghether $50 was buying a dump house for a song, slapping on a coat of paint and a new kitchen counter, and trying to sell it for a huge profit. And for several years they were making money. Is this a factor, or just a symptom?  Just how big a slice of the pie was this? When the meltdown first hit, they were the first to foreclose, thus the foreclosure rates in some rather trendy areas went through the roof, before it blew up in the poorer areas. Enough to get the ball rolling, or perhaps rolling a bit faster?

In the same way, the home builders haven’t made a normal house in ages. Every new dwelling built over the last decade was a “McMansion”. Another symptom, or another bit of inertia keeping the old ball rolling?

Personally, I think there is plenty of blame to go around. And now I’m beginning to think that the failure of the bailout bill may not be such a bad thing. I’m really not sure that it’s a good idea.

Posted by Drew458     on 09/30/2008 at 07:48 PM   
Filed Under: • Finance and Investing • Insanity •  
• Comments (6) • Trackbacks(1)  Permalink •  

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