Wall Street's meltdown: In search of a villain

I think you can blame the democrats and Bill Clinton for the Freddie May and Fannie Mac disasters, which was a huge contributor to this, and then the banking industry in general for making such stupid risky investments based solely on short term gains and greed. I think these people should be hung from the lamp posts, because what they have done is criminal in the extreme.
http://stocksbuyorsell.com

It's laughable to blame F&F on Democrats and Bill Clinton.

The architects of this disaster are George Bush, Karl Rove, and Alan Greenspan.

Bernanke took over the Fed in 2006. In 2006 he issued guidelines that virtually ended exotic subprime lending. No act of congress was required. The President did not have to be consulted. He initiated regulatory authority over mortgage lending that was given to the Federal Reserve by the Clinton Administration in 1994. Greenspan could have done it in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005. He refuse while citing pop Ayn Rand lunacy.

The vast majority of the foreclosures during the Bush administration involved subprime loans that were originated by private-sector entities that lay outside CRA requirements, and were originated between 2002 and 2006.

The usual advice in a strong bear market--which is perfectly good advice in most instances--is "buy on the dips".. In this case, however, it is best to buy when you hear the rumble of hundreds of thousands pouring into the streets, the fire of howitzers can be heard in the distance, the smell of burning buildings hangs heavy in the air, and those bodies of investment bankers and hedge fund managers start falling from the heights of the Chrysler Bldg. Now that is REALLY "buying on the dips".

An alternative is to simply dollar cost average into banks and financial stocks irrespective of the economic conditions.

To the guy who said blame the democrats... I think they are the ones who have been trying to rein in this extreme, unchecked form of capitalism. Yes, there is greed and short-terminism, that is the nature of investment banking and stockbroking. So, presumably, you can't blame the companies and businessmen involved, even though they may have been reckless. So you blame the goverment.

Takes a leap of logic to not blame the guy who was had been pushing for deregulation for his whole two years of his presidency, whose party backed him. Clinton and the Democrats kept a leash on them, and it worked. Bush changed all that.

We all talk about the economy of this country like it is someones in particular fault. Get a life all you! The fault of the failure lays with us all. We elected the government officials to watch over us and our money. We are the ones who stood back and said that this would never happen in America. We are the ones who spent large sums of money when we thought this were OK. But did we ever really check to see the inside and what was happening. Come on folks. You can blame who ever you want if it make you feel good. But, the truth of the matter is it is our fault and no one else's... We let the banks go unchecked. We paid the outragious low morgage payments to get a home we really could not affford. All of a sudden banks could not make there own payments to the central banks because of idiots lending money that was not there. All the time we thought everything was OK. B.S. folks, this was a long time coming and when it hit you are all looking for a scape goat to cover your own stupid mistakes...

Excuse me, but where the heck did that 700 billion dollars go, anyway?

Must we not forget Sheila Bair and Jaime Dimon during the whole seizure. The following the week the market crashed.

Must we not forget Sheila Bair and Jaime Dimon during the whole seizure. The following the week the market crashed.

The Democrat written and passed "Community Reinvestment Act" is to blame. This was Carter's doing that required giving bad loans mostly to "people of color." It was modified to be worse under Clinton. The banks were first encouraged then basically forced to give bad loans. Then Freddie and Fanny pioneered the practice of securitizing the bad mortgages to spread the risk. Democrats like Barney Frank and Maxine Waters fought against regulating these GSE's. If the Fed had not kept the interest rates artificially low creating a housing bubble, the bad loans would have been foreclosed, end of story. But the Fed fueled the housing bubble and now it came crashing down all at once.

that's the race-baiting nonsense that republicans are trying to indoctrinate the world with. yet more reprehensible behavior on the part of the conservatives. the CRA was involved in only 20-25% of the subprime loans,the other 75-80% of the subprime were by morgage lenders.
"A national study of the performance of Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) covered banks concludes, "CRA Banks were substantially less likely than other lenders to make the kinds of risky home purchase loans that helped fuel the foreclosure crisis. CRA Banks were significantly less likely than other lenders to make a high cost loan. The average APR on high cost loans originated by CRA Banks was appreciably lower than the average APR on high cost loans originated by other lenders; CRA Banks were more than twice as likely as other lenders to retain originated loans in their portfolio." http://www.traigerlaw.com/publications/traiger_hinckley_llp_cra_foreclosure_study_1-7-08.pdf

republicans love to preach "take responsibility for your action, but they have not taken responsibility for the trickle down, cut taxes AND REGULATIONS mantra they have been blowing in our collective ear for the past 30 years.

"Anne said...
Excuse me, but where the heck did that 700 billion dollars go, anyway?"

10% of the $700 billion bailout to be footed by U.S. taxpayers is projected to go to the pay and bonuses of Wall Street bankers.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/oct/17/executivesalaries-banking

The unequivocal "censorship" being exercised by AOL by the selective deltion of various comments is uncoscionable. For example, they have selectively deleted previous comments to this article.

Who is it in AOL that is empowered to "censor" legitimate and relevant comments, and what is the basis for such censorship? I consider this to be worrisome for ALL Americans.

I have wondered about the "censorship" rules, too. I've had all kinds of things happen to me, but the most interesting happened a week or two ago, when I asked a friend to go look at my comments (and vote). I gave her the link, with the exact timestamps and even said to sort "ascending," since it was near the beginning of the file... She could not find my messages and said that there was a gap from the timestamp before each message, to after. OK, no big deal, I've had my messages edited out before... What burns me, is that when I went back to look, they were there! It was like my version was "journalized" and had the missing comments restored, so I would think that they were still there, but the "world" didn't see them! Talk about sneaky! The Mission Impossible guys couldn't have done a better job! Michael R. Sanders (retired from EDS, but still vigilant.)

I think these guys should have their assest seized and sold to pay for the bailout.The tax payer gets the bill for these guys greed and Congress doesnt have the backbone to do anything about it except to haul them in front of Congress and chastise them.These guys are laughing all the way to the bank.Really wants me to pay my taxes

If you're looking for someone to blame.

A scapegoat..

Then blame each and every one of us as we caused this mess and we need to step up to the plate and deal with it.

Take a look at my latest You Tube video titled "The Sky is Falling" on my web site at http://www.KeepAmericaAtWork.com

Until we stop looking for a scapegoat and realize that our greed and our willingness to sell the rope that will be used to hang ourselves, well lets just say that the person that is at fault is all of us.

Virgil
http://www.KeepAmericaAtWork.com

The Republicans wanted deregulation. They have won the majority of the elections the past twenty five years. Majority rules in America. The Republicans, got what they, the majority, wanted. Next time, make sure, we really know and understand what it is we really want. Because in, America, sometimes, we really can get what we want.

The real crooks are the ones on Wall Street , George Bush, Dick Cheney, andDonald Rumsfeld . With Obama at the helm, CEO's will get less compensations and the deployment of troops will free up monies to help stimulate the economy. The days of GREED will be gone. The new money revolution is beginning.