Quote Originally Posted by Crotalus View Post
Yes, things like Love Canal are blights on our Citizens and the people that did that deserve jail and fines.

I must disagree. The responsibility for the present financial situation sits squarely on the Democrats. Follow this thread, it goes all the way back to the Carter Administration. A law called the Community Reinvestment Act was passed. It addressed the perceived problem of mortgage loans not being made to poor people that couldn't afford houses. It put pressure on banks to make loans. The bank regulators were looking for something called "redlining". The denial of loans to poor people. Never mind that these people just couldn't afford the loans.

Now comes Clinton. He put teeth in the law and Banks were put under even more pressure. Banks mergers and a lot of other business was denied unless the banks could show that they were making high risk loans to poor people. To be able to comply the banks started doing outrageous things like the "liars loan" where false information was put on the applications, and Adjustable Rate Mortgages so the loans could be paid for a few years. The housing market was booming. The banks made money and sold the loans to Fanny Mae because they knew they were bad. Federal regulators looked the other way because this was government policy after all. Another company, I forget the name, insured the loans and packaged them up and sold bonds on the worthless loans calling them derivatives. Fanny Mae was making a killing. Then the market started to fall. Defaults rose because values declined and the houses could not be sold for what was on the books. The insurance company couldn't cover the losses and went under. Suddenly the derivatives were worthless. Iceland owned a boatload of them and their economy collapsed. The problem spread to Europe.

The Bush Administration spotted the problem in 2002 and tried to do something, but was blocked in Congress. The managers of Fanny Mae quit before the fall, pocketed their millions and now work for Obama.

These people should be in jail, but because the government caused the problem they don't want the spotlight on the real causes.

Banks did what they had to and didn't squawk because they were making money. The government that was supposed to be protecting us caused the problem. What is their solution, more regulation.
I'm truly agnostic when it comes to political loyalty...democrats, republicans, conservatives, liberals, NDP...they are all just different shades of the same colour. Blame the democrats if you must, but the fact is that the disaster happened.

Not to gloat, but if you had a similar banking system to the one we have here in Canada and a little more regulation, you would not be in this situation.

Canada is not exactly a socialist state. We have free markets, capitalism rules and we have fair and free elections...lol We also have a financial system that just simply does not allow for less than ethical companies to make a profit at ANY cost. Call it more regulation, call it socialist, but it protects the citizens.