How the Bush administration shoved the housing bubble down America's throat.

[Free Trade is managed by the invisible hand.]

so anyone here still arguing for deregulation? is free market fundamentalism still climbing to its peak, or has their bubble popped as well?

[Free Trade is managed by the invisible hand.]

Yes, I got this from a certain blog, but...

"In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government's actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/13/AR2008021302783.html

corelation does not equal causation, furthermore this article does not account for several factors.
1.Demographic changes
2. The fact that housing prices prior to this decade only rose at an expected rate of 1% per year, and thus investors thought that housing prices would always safely rise.
3. Finally during this decade housing prices began to rise at more than one percent each year, and would eventualy rise at 6% per year.

[Free Trade is managed by the invisible hand.]

Did we blame Bush for the Holocaust yet? 

no, but lets blame him for darfur.

[Free Trade is managed by the invisible hand.]

Did we blame Bush for the Holocaust yet? 

no, but lets blame him for darfur.

Been there done that......don't you read and don't you listen to the Hollywood elites who've told this again and again?  Let's think of something new to blame him for.

I'll be honest that I do not actually hate george bush, but I just disagree with some of things he did. dubbya bush had some role in this financial crisis, but their may be other factors that are more important.

[Free Trade is managed by the invisible hand.]

The dirty little secret is that there was near unanimous support from all sides to feed the housing bubble. Getting everyone into home ownership was as high a priority, if not higher, than a 19 year old high testosteroned male getting laid regularly. And it was a good deal for many, because as housing prices went up having put nothing down, or actually getting loans higher than the purchase price of a house (the notorious 110% mortgage), it was like almost free money out of a seemingly bottomless ATM machine, and when prices went down, you just stopped paying your mortgage, and lived rent free in your house for a year or two or three, before the lender finally takes it back at no cost to you. What a deal, particularly for those who don't pay any income taxes, so they don't need to worry about the multi trillon dollar cost to the feds.

During the savings a loan crisis in the later 1980's, I once had this fantasy of owning two savings and loan institutions, one of which went short on interest rates, and the other long. Then when there was a big interest rate move, you give the failed institution back to the FSLIC, and make your fortune on the other one. It seemed like a rather  brilliant approach to me.

1. Prior to the housing bubble prices for housing went up 1% percent a year and thus were considered a safe and steady investment. During the housing bubble the price of housing would go up anywhere between 3 to 6%. What lead to this change is the fact that after the Glass steagal act was repealed the housing market now became more interconnected with securities, and a market which is prone to high amounts of speculation. When investors saw the housing market beginning to boom they immediately started widen their portfolio, and over speculate on housing. Thus as a result the housing industry no longer became a steady safe investment, but instead something more prone to violitale changes like most things in the stock market are usually prone to doing. Thus if the Glass-Steagal act was never repealed we would not have had housing so interconnected with the stock market, and a stocks almost inherit inclination to behave in a highly violalate manner.

[Free Trade is managed by the invisible hand.]

on a side note consumer price inflation has continued to remain low since the 80's, and the only thing that has changed is we now have high unemployment.