badgenome said:
No. This is why we crashed. |
That is definitely a huge part of why we crashed, it helped set off the decades long domino effect in the banking industry & housing markets that put us where we are. People who think that Bush removing some regulations 'caused' the crash are simply ignoring the facts, this problem was much longer in the making than that and spanned multiple presidents and congresses. There's plenty of blame to go around, between Government essentially requiring banks to make bad loans (so people who can't afford a house can still get one), the banks then passing their 'bad' risk on to others with mortgage backed securities, the ensuing housing Bubble, then members of congress ignoring the danger caused by the issues with Freddie/Fannie for many, many years. Blaming one president for such a complex problem that was decades in the making is nothing more than politically motivated crap (or a fundamental lack of understanding of the economy).
The fact is that the Bush administration had been warning about the dangers of Freddie and Fannie, and was calling for reforms for years, but many members of congress in key positions (like Barney Frank for example) were not too keen on doing this as they were in Freddie and Fannie's pockets. When reform was finally passed, it was too little, too late. The blame goes to many members of our broken government, but mainly to corrupt senators and house members (in BOTH parties) who propped up these failing institutions for many years. The results of decades of bad policy and ignoring the warning signs put us in a very fragile position, so it didn't take much to push us over the edge.
