It is a cultural problem, sure.

Better numbers than Reagan, Clinton et al, by the the theories of the Rocket scientists of howobamagotelected.com, America must be getting more ignoranter and more ignoranter.

Oh, save us, you Republican intellectual giants, from the ignorance of Obama, by the light of Sarah Palin.

Thanx. And I am pretty sure the revolution has been totally repudiated this time. The stakes are high for Republicans. The only way they can keep the horseshit train rolling is if Obama fucks up. They never had actual good ideas for the country, just a self-serving, short-sighted con game. They will do their best to obstruct and destroy. I'm of the belief that this will only drive them deeper into the wilderness.

Oh, Zippy, you are hilarious. I love it when you think you have me cornered. Usually it is because you are too eager to defend Bush to read what was said. I'll repeat again simpler this time.

Fannie and Freddie were the ONLY targets (not the mortgage or the financial industry) and then...nothing happened...Bush's crony said they were jus' fine.

Read the quote again, Zippy: But his housing policies and hands-off approach to regulation encouraged lax lending standards.

Lack of accountability is the hallmark of the Bush Administration. They are incompetent to the level of not even doing the basics: "Where is this money going. You need to be able to show you are loaning it out. Nope. It is a part of a philosophy that business can do no wrong.

When someone lies to investigators of a crime (the leak), it is customary to investigate why he lied. When you lie to investigators, it's called obstruction of justice.

So...you gonna explain to me how Whitewater, the travel office, FBI files, Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky are linked? You made the Libby and Clinton investigations seem comparable. I think that sounds another one of your fact-free moments, but maybe you can explain it.

There is no such rule. It is at the discretion of the judge. Each judge has a certain amount of say in his/her court. The guy was just being a dick.

No, he took a plea on perjury, not obstruction. Perjury in the Lewinsky deposition, which was dredged up out of the Paula Jones lawsuit, which was a part of a cluster of investigations having no relationship to one another, including Whitewater (real estate), Filegate, (FBI documents) travelgate (accusations of improper firings in the travel office) It was a six year investigation in search of a crime and though every oportunistic Clinton-hater was invited to the party, not one damn thing was found. PRICE TAG: 40 MILLION DOLLARS.

You compare that to a year of investigation for, in your own words 'A CRIME.' [caps mine for emphasis.] Singular, ONE crime. You then tell us that because the prosecutor knew who leaked, he should have stopped the investigation. Libby got busted for perjury because he lied to investigators about his conversations with reporters.

Ah, the Republican mind. Iron delusions.

You didn't finish your sentence. Here, I'll do it for you, "...Clinton did it..."

There ya go brax, debate over, Clinton did it.

Anyway, as I said in another post, the ARM loans alone would not have caused such widespread damage, had they not been turned into widely sold securities which were sold as "safe." To fill demand for these securities, millions of bad loans were issued by all mortgagers, which resulted in massive losses in the financial industry. Clinton pushing for relaxed rules in Fannie Mae in 1999, is a far cry from encouraging the growth of the MBS disaster-in-waiting.

Wha? Are you blaming Clinton? I'm shocked. SHOCKED!

Leave it to you to reply to an entire article about how Bush stoked the crisis and find a way to blame Clinton. Fannie Mae is not the entire mortgage industry. It wasn't trying to expand home ownership that was the problem, it was "[Bush's] housing policies and hands-off approach to regulation encouraged lax lending standards," in the ENTIRE industry. Not just Fannie Mae.

Further, the collapse of the financial industry was caused by something called a mortgage-backed security. That was the real problem.

"The nationwide mortgage-default crisis has harshly punished many of the participants in the mortgage-backed-securities market. As subprime lenders failed, Wall Street firms such as Bear Stearns, which underwrote the issuance of such securities, saw their revenues fall. Hedge funds that traded mortgage-backed securities using lots of borrowed money suffered heavy losses as the value of the bonds fell."

http://www.slate.com/id/2186801/

I await how the growth of this sort of security in the last 8 years is Clinton's fault. Or Poppy's fault.

Why the Mortgage-backed Security Went the Way of the Dinosaur

---Prior to the first decade of the 21st century, it was customary for a U.S. bank to exercise due diligence (an investigation into the applicant's history) when considering lending money for a mortgage. Banks wanted to know all about an applicant's financial stability -- income, debt, credit rating -- and they wanted it verified. This changed after the mortgage-backed security (MBS) was introduced.

Eventually, the most desirable, qualified customers dried up; they all had homes. So banks turned to customers they'd traditionally shunned -- subprime borrowers. These are borrowers with low credit ratings who pose a high risk of defaulting on their loan. But lenders of all stripes bent over backwards in the early 2000s to get this type of borrower into homes. The no-document loan was created, a type of loan for which the lender didn't ask for any information and the borrower didn't offer it. People who may have been unemployed as far as the lender knew received loans for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Why?---

http://money.howstuffworks.com/mortgage-backed-security1.htm

You are HILARIOUS when you talk about checking facts. Read the article from this month that I just posted (as opposed to your three month old thing.)

---He pushed hard to expand homeownership, especially among minorities, an initiative that dovetailed with his ambition to expand the Republican tent — and with the business interests of some of his biggest donors. But his housing policies and hands-off approach to regulation encouraged lax lending standards.

Mr. Bush did foresee the danger posed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored mortgage finance giants. The president spent years pushing a recalcitrant Congress to toughen regulation of the companies, but was unwilling to compromise when his former Treasury secretary wanted to cut a deal. And the regulator Mr. Bush chose to oversee them — an old prep school buddy — pronounced the companies sound even as they headed toward insolvency.

As early as 2006, top advisers to Mr. Bush dismissed warnings from people inside and outside the White House that housing prices were inflated and that a foreclosure crisis was looming. And when the economy deteriorated, Mr. Bush and his team misdiagnosed the reasons and scope of the downturn; as recently as February, for example, Mr. Bush was still calling it a “rough patch.”---

Yep, he wanted to regulate Fannie and Freddie JUST Fannie and Freddie, and ultimately put in a crony who pronounced them sound.

You are always wrong and so smarmy about it.




Obama doesn't need excuses. Never will.

Stop being a child. He is responsible for what his vice says, unless he disavows it. He IS either blaming Clinton or his father but Clinton had eight of those years. Why can't you understand the concept of personal responsibility when it comes to the president?

This crisis started with housing. The "innovations" that caused it began in the Bush years. Bush once claimed the bubble...until it burst.

http://www.itsallpolitics.com/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,26/topic,3190.0/

For those interested in how Bush was happy to claim and encourage the housing bubble that caused this crisis, until it collapsed and became Clinton and Poppy's fault. Here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/business/21admin.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2&bl&ei=5087&en=03cc697c3c1376e9&ex=1230094800

Ah, yes, more failed arguments from you, covered up with twisted words and smarminess.

Yep, do you even understand your own conservative philosophy? Reagan popularized the principle that Bush followed to the letter. GREED IS GOOD.

Reagan claimed tax cuts would cure all ills. He raised taxes twice. Bush, not once, and cut taxes for the wealthy several times. Bush: More Reagan than Reagan. Reagan liked wars. Bush started two. More Reagan than Reagan. Churching the State. Reagan Reagan Reagan. Reagan ran up the deficit on military spending, so did Bush. Reagan supported amnesty for illegals. So did Bush. Reagan had a net increase in the size of the Federal government. Bush expanded it, too.

Reagan deregulated and gutted government departments he didn't like. Bush gutted the SEC, privatized vital government services, and deregulated like crazy. Because you are a wind-up Bush-bot you can't see that Bush and his Reaganite philosophy have been to blame for this crisis.

Sorry you can't understand what 75% of Americans already know, Bush is a failed president who has destroyed the Reagan Revolution for a generation. Clinton's mistake was in accepting some of the precepts of that Revolution of lies, because the Congress went to Republicans.

Lenin started the Revolution in Russia. That doesn't mean that anyone but Stalin was responsible for the purges. Reagan started the Revolution, but bungling Bush finished it. Get it, stupid?

No...I await who in the Congress is and the media is to blame for poor George's failure'...

You are sad.

Tiny bit of perspective:

Our current debt is ~60% of GDP.

After WWII, it was ~120%.

The deficit is bad. Not spending is worse. Right now, private lenders don't want to lend anything to private business. They will, however lend to the US government because they know the money is guaranteed. When private industry holds tight to their money only the government has it to spend. This country has gone to shit in the last thirty years, there is plenty of useful spending to be done.

Now, of course, if you are one of those buttplugs who thinks this is the US of You. Tough. Deal with it. If you don't want to pay your taxes, go somewhere else.