| MikeB said: @ TheRealMafoo . The issue started with Carter, and then was really put into motion with sub prime lending by the Clinton Administration. FYI the US' national debt had the biggest decrease under the Clinton administration, the plan was to be debt free by 2013. That would mean the US would have saved huge costs with regard to interest payments. Instead under the Bush administration the US national debt doubled to above 10 trillion (10.000 Billion USD). President Bush made many incredibly stupid decisions, for instance with regard to allowing people to get too high loans enabling people to own their own (far too expensive for them) houses (he specifically encouraged this!). That's at the core of the current housing problems. The current situation is so much worse compared to the time when Clinton left office. Some radically unpopular decisions are needed for a new president or else.... |
Sorry for the off topic...
Bush did a worse job as president then Clinton, there is no question. The Government is worse off due to Bush. But Clinton, in an attempted to stop the growing gap of rich vs poor, tried to grow wealth for the poor with sub prime lending. He figured if he could get the poor into houses, they would generate wealth. While I think he heart was in the right place, I think it was the wrong way to go about it. It's why we are in the mess we are in right now. It caused the number of people who could afford a house to go up. Without the number of houses increasing, this causes the value of homes to go up. People started building houses. Until builders caught up with demand (about 2 years ago), the problem didn't show itself. Now the supply is more then the demand, and everyone who took out adjustable rate mortgages gambling that there house would always grow in value, just lost. Sadly, that's trillions of dollars worth of people.
Some congress men saw this coming, and tried to stop it (Ron Paul), but Fanny and Freddy had everyone in there pocket, so it was unstoppable. The only way you could have stopped this, is to not do it at all. If the government had not meddled in the market. This would have never happened.
It's funny when I hear people say "This economic crisis is an example of why we need more regulation of the free market". No, it's an example of why government should stay the hell out of the free market.
