Obama on Wall Street

[harryh]

Keep in mind that every time the Obama campaign says something like this, they are basically saying that the Bush administration should have done something (thought it's not at all clear what exactly) about the fact that our financial institutions were loaning so much money to poor people so that they could purchase homes

Comments

[billyfleetwood]

From the digging around i've been doing today, it seems like The Clinton Administration piled up a bunch of dry leaves, and then The Bush Administration basically said "Hey, we totally trust you guys with that box of matches and that jug of gasoline

[joshc]

there's no winning elections in saying that everyone can't have a half-million dollar house regardless of net worth.

[jliszka]

Well it looks like the administration is finally coming around to some sensible regulation...The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac... It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.
Oh, wait... that was in 2003. So, why didn't it happen?Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing

[camiolo]

You know Barney's getting reelected no matter what he says. But hey, at least I get to vote against him!

[queen_elvis]

I read that as criticizing Bush policies of deregulation and possibly trickle-down economics, plus trying to associate those policies with McCain. Which you can legitimately criticize, but it doesn't exactly equal "Bush should have done something"; it's more like "Bush shouldn't have done what he did." And yeah, you can still read that as "we're against lending money to poor people," but you can also read it as "we're against lending money to people who can't afford to pay it back."

As a side note, part of the reason I'm not well-educated about all the financial stuff that's gone down lately is that the articles on them tend to be about politics rather than the basics of who did what, when, how and to whom.

[harryh]

Bush shouldn't have done what he did

But there is no "what he did" to criticize (in relation to the wall street/mortgage crisis).

As a side note, part of the reason I'm not well-educated about all the financial stuff that's gone down lately

All hail our miserable press corp! On this I am sure we can agree.

[matthewljacobs]

As a side note, part of the reason I'm not well-educated about all the financial stuff that's gone down lately

This helped me get a handle on it, at a simplified level:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1242

[superhumancuban]

good link, thanks for posting.

[xaotica]

curious about your opinion of mccain/palin... Worth its own post maybe