Ronald Reagan was the one who started us down this road. His irresponsible spending and deregulation are the foundation of this fiscal mess.

iono. If 50% of americans put all their money into a Charles Schwab Money Market account and some douche at Schwab thought it was a good investment to send a giant cashier's check to Nigeria to help a split the inheritance of deceased king, do you think the Government should step in and "avert the crisis"?

I know it sounds absurd but where does the line stop as to when the gov't should intervene with your personal finances?

Tally up all the Democratic Presidents and their work over the past 20 years, and I can't see how any of them or their work could be blamed for what is happening today. Republicans on the other hand..........

Look into the home price to rent ratio, when and why it skyrocketed, and who was in charge ...

I don't need to read this, Republicans are fiscal liberals. 'nuff said. This political... whatever is silly. I think the fact that the election is so close republicans and democrats are really getting disgustingly dirty in their bashing of each other.

If you are a Republican don't bash deregulation. That is what you represent and its silly to try using it against democrats.

I bet this has already been discussed. But I'm not reading.

I blame problems in America majorly on the ruling party in the White House. Bush fucked this country up good in four years then the brilliant american people gave him another fucking 4 years.

I may be close minded but I still can't get how we went for surplus to trillions in defecit.

I really dont know how much we can blame the government for this. Once they saw these subprime loans going out they really should have stepped in, but I don't think we can blame Bush for this so much (we can blame him for everything else.)

It IS his fault that gas prices went up. It is his fault that Americans began to panic because of "terrorism", which undoubtedly affects how consumers act in the market.

But this right now, I think its investment banks fault. Investing billions in assets backed by consumers will horrible to no credit is stupid. Sure the returns are high but when they don't pay, your screwed. It only took a slight economic slowdown to trigger the domino effect and thats exactly what happened.

You are misplacing the blame. The blame should not be placed on the banks, the government nor the people borrowing the money. No, their actions were the direct result of the Federal Reserve's actions. Why did the banks loan money to people who could not afford it? Because interest rates were shockingly low from about 2001-2004. The Fed created this housing bubble...and then it popped. Government intervention would have done nothing to stop this. After the Fed had done its damage in that three year period...the *pop* was inevitable.  

The only thing worse than a Republican or a Democrat is when these two f'ers work together. There shouldn't be government control over this shit... but there should be something to make sure that they don't pull this kind of BS... kind of like if you step outside your radio freq and onto the military's you're in deep shiznits.

Wait. So "ANTI- REGULATION" Republicans were for that bill?

Both Republicans and Democrats corruption screwed over the country on this. Both parties were against it. In 2005 and 2006, Republicans still had control. In 2007, the Democrats had tacit control. Nobody was pushing for it.

Greenspan is no less guilty (more?)

Greenspan could say anything that he wanted in 2005, he kept interest rates too low. He encouraged everyone to get Adjustable Rate Mortgages: