This is why partisanship is horrible, rather than take some responsibility it’s so much easier to blame the other party. If we learn to accept our failures, we can correct them.
Bush was simply the last person in office to do something about it, though I think he does share an unreasonable amount of the blame. Regardless, I don’t think any President could have pushed that agenda through. It was simply making too much money. Look at the accounting scandals from Raines alone. Look at how much money they were contributing to both parties. Also, how can any politician vote against it? Describing the problem and market distortions of FNM is not a good sound bite and will be lost on most of the voters as it is here on this board. Any politician regulating FNM will have his opponent shout: “He wants to deny minorities and poor people the hope of the American Dream™?”
Trying to decide which party to blame in this situation is akin to sitting in the middle of a forest that’s burning down all around you and arguing about who accidentally put their cigarette out on a brush-pile.
It’s going to really hurt some people, but there aren’t any really big political figures you can finger on this one. This stuff was bigger than politics. A few people knew it was bad before it started and kept clear of it, a larger portion knew this could happen but were gambling that it wouldn’t, or that when the housing bubble burst it wouldn’t cause such a catastrophic crisis.
It all goes back to overvaluing homes in America.
Probably some of the key people you could blame for this would be Richard Syron to start with, he was informed about the impending crisis about four years ago and did absolutely nothing to stop it, and he was in a key position that could have effected change at a time when it may have meant something.
Once a bubble forms, it’s most definitely going to burst–and this housing bubble was quite probably the largest bubble in the history of the United States and most likely the world. But things could have been done at various stages to have lessened the impact.
Barney Frank takes some of the blame, as he most certainly resisted any attempts to reign in the Macs, and up until it was obvious to pretty much everyone else he continued to argue that there was no impending crisis.
Christopher Cox gets a nice share of the blame for some of the most lax regulatory behavior we’ve seen out of the SEC in its history.
But most of the big “name” politicians, Bush, for example–honestly had nothing to do with this, as much as that may upset partisans who are always looking for someone on which to hang blame.
I never said, not once, that the Republicans shouldn’t share some of the blame for not passing this bill (although I’m not sure “blame” is the right word for the bill not passing). I just don’t understand how the Democrats’ hands are clean here.
First time home buyers aren’t the ones defaulting, for the most part. These are, as I understand it, higher end people buying (and refinancing) higher end properties and then the bottoms dropping out both of the property and the income. A lot of people buying properties to flip them, and finding the value going down instead of up, and so forth. I’m not one to defend Bush - as far as I’m concerned, he’s the worst president I’ve lived through, and I was born during Eisenhower. But the policies addressed in this post are not things that caused this crisis, except for the astronomical budgets, the wars, and the lack of fiscal discipline, which may or may not have had impact, but were certainly indirect.
A lot of CEOs faced this same problem. They either invested heavily in the housing bubble and achieved equal or better return than their competitors who were doing the same, or they didn’t and they risked shareholders being angry that they weren’t achieving a rate of return as high as their competitors.
There are a select few CEOs of major U.S. banks (look to Bank of America, and also BB&T although it is a much smaller bank) that actually didn’t engage in the ludicrous over-leveraging and generally stupid financial decisions that many of their competitors did–for this reason these banks are still around and BofA is now the largest bank in America in virtually all types of banking.
I don’t know that they’re malevolent. They could just be obtusely doctrinaire.
Not clean. Just a hell of a lot cleaner. By a factor of about 2 to 1, it looks to me.
Shayna’s quote is also from 2002. It’s clear from looking at the White House’s rhetoric over the years that there was growing alarm over the conditions at Fannie/Freddie, and with subprime mortgages.
There’s really no question about it. One statement to a group of supporters from early in his administration does not refute the dozens of statements of increasingly alarmist tone that have been emanating from the administration since.
Sure, unfortunately just 2% more of Americans choose to not correct anything and decided to vote for the current “leader” again.
Ok, that’s not what’s being said here.
Interesting thought - if it turns out (after more examination) that the bill was a bad idea…are the Republicans then heroes? (My opinion: no).
But that’s saying the bill was a “good thing” if the market gets stabilized, the credit market clears up and no bailout bill happens, what will you all do? I think the democrats and the republicans who votes NO did what the people they represent wanted. Anything else and it would be the same ol’ same ol’ doing what they want to do. They’re elected to represent us, and half of us don’t want this bailout.
Let me post again a list of statements the Bush Administration has made to Congress over the years, stressing the need for reform. From here:
Didn’t do much change in 2006 did it? Except changed the R to D as the majority to screw over the people.
If I wasn’t married, I’d take you up on that! 
That’s cute! Thanks!
Never said or implied there was anything sinister about that. It was simply meant to refute Sam’s contention that Republicans have been fighting this for a long, long time, over the objections of those greedy ol’ Democrats. Clearly I’ve shown that that’s not exactly true.
I don’t see where Democrats “favored adjustable mortgage rates” either. I certainly disagree that Bush is blameless in any of this. It’s gone down primarily on his watch over the past 7 years!
I also didn’t say Democrats were blameless. If you have a problem with finger pointing at one and only one party, realign your hand in the direction of Sam Stone, who seems to think this falls squarely in the lap of Democrats. Nevermind Gramm-Leach-Bliley, repealing the last of Glass-Steagall through the Republican Congress, etc., etc., etc.
Oh, really? Only by doing half of the effort done for the Iraq and FISA causes would have made a difference.
Bush and the Republicans choose to do just butt covering efforts.
Democrats do deserve blame but it is silly to ignore who had the power to make a difference, I have to conclude that Bush and other Republican leaders did not have much of a will on reigning on this.
I grew up believing that Republicans and the NY Yankees are in constant contention for the title of “Antichrist,” so by me, no. 
At best, they’ll get a grudging “They were right this time,” which I am capable of giving. I have in fact voted for a Republican in my life. Once. I have occasionally praised contemporary Republicans. I have certainly respected Republicans up to and including the time of Teddy Rooseveldt.
But let’s face it. We’ll never know. Whatever route we go, we’ll never know what would have happened had we gone another way.
I do understand firing back, on the same token I guess I would like more people to say “THEY ALL FUCKED UP” it would make for a healing moment.
I just listened to Tom Tancredo on the radio. He voted for the bill, and he said that they had the votes last night, but he felt many Republicans voted against the bill hoping that it would pass and they could play it both ways. He definitely put the blame on Republicans, much to the chagrin of the right-wing host interviewing him.
He did mention Pelosi’s speech (he said he wanted to throttle her) but said that anyone who changed their vote because of it was an idiot.
And that pisses me off about the press. Everyone is talking about the biggest POINT drop. Not percentages. My Mom went through that in '87 and toughed throurgh it, hung in there and did OK. I’ll ‘tough’ it out too.