How the crisis developed, in plain English
Pretty plain, anyway.
Meanwhile, if your blood isn't boiling yet today, here's a story to heat it up.
For an even more depressing read, there's this.
And I think this fellow crystallizes my thoughts pretty well.
| Posted at 2:27 PM | Permalink |
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Comments (4)
I thought the last article by the Harvard guy was most interesting even though I would still love to hear his solution besides this.
I ahve to take issue with his one statement:
"Congress pushed mortgage lenders and Fannie/Freddie to expand subprime lending."
While the govt may have enabled it, I don't think anyone was forcing banks to write these loans outside of greed for higher returns.
Posted by Steve | October 1, 2008 4:24 PM
And, as many people have noted, most of the subprime was done by mortgage brokers, not banks, so there was no community reinvestment act pressure there.
Posted by George Seldes | October 1, 2008 7:03 PM
The focus on borrowing and lending practices is partly a diversion. It was the creation of a "derivative" market that made this into a house of cards, and that was a creature of deregulation. Lending practices came into play when this pyramid scheme required a steady stream of new loans.
Here's my commentary on DailyKos last week.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/25/143232/846/988/610247
Posted by Sue Hagmeier | October 2, 2008 9:23 AM
This is a much better take.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5tZc8oH--o
Posted by Ben | October 2, 2008 10:40 AM