Who is Responsible? (Meltdown): Fannie Mae - Freddie Mac - Wall Street - Bill Clinton - George Bush?

Who is responsible?

Visit my blog; it will show you a good cross section of those that are responsible. (link at my channel)

The TOTAL of ALL non performing mortgages is only 3-4% of the TOTAL of ALL "TOXIC ASSETS". 30 to 1 leverage of of mortgage backed securities on the unregulated securities market account for 95%+ of the money we had to come up with for the bail out. Deregulation of the shadow banking system / crazy high leverage ratios / unregulated derivatives were, for the most part, pushed by Republicans.

All are to blame for the economic carnage: But, Dems used hand grenades...the Reps used Nukes.

But if there was no housing bubble to collapse, then the leveraged etc assets would have been fine. True, not true?

jb- I'm not sure...if mortgage portfolios had remained stable...those that borrowed against them at 30 to 1 would have kept going..maybe saying "hey why not 50 to 1?" That seems wrong...and ultimately not sustainable.

One thing is for sure. If the regulations had stayed on about leverage and if derivatives would have been regulated...all we would now have is 100 or so billion in bad mortgages,
instead of 3 trillion in toxic securities and credit swaps.
Like I said..hand grenades vs nukes.

What you say is most likely true, but, why give mortgages to those who are not really qualified? If this was to continue for many, many years, then would this not present a problem of its own?

I understand that people were basically betting against the ability of people being able to pay their mortgages off or not, but, if they were all good loans to people of good financial standing, then they would have lost their bets and we would be OK. right?

jb- Well.....you are basically making an argument for regulation of the mortgage industry. And I was making an argument for regulation of the securities industry.

Ironically, what we had in the US from 1934 to about 1999 was "regulated capitalism" and during that period we had solid growth and few financial disasters. It was perhaps (economically speaking) the strongest period in our history. I hope thats what we go back to. No socialist here..but capitalism needs some checks and balances.

FACT! Bill Clinton signed Gramm-Leach-Bliley. FACT! Bills ARE NOT VETO-PROOF. Clinton had the right to veto the bill in protest, even if it would have been overturned. HE didn't, because he favored the bill. Many, many Democrats voted for the bill, since Democrat fund raiser and contributor Sandy Weill was Chairman of Citigroup. Weill completed the acquisition of Travelers (which owned Smith Barney) on October 8, 1998 well before Glass-Stegall was replaced by Gramm-Leach-Bliley in 1999.

jbranstetter04 Ok I give....what does liberal republicans have to do with any of this???

I finally got caught up on my comments.

The liberal republicans often side with the democrats in the Senate thereby preventing a filibuster. That's all.

Ok ok you got me.... I mistyped that.... It should have read in 2005 the Democrats didn't have the 60 votes in order to filibuster during Bush era. And I repeat in 1999 Pubs again controlled both houses. Clinton signed legislation, yes, to repeal Glass Steagall. Once more, it would have passed whether he signed it or not as Pubs controlled the Congress then as well! In Senate in its entirety it passed the repeal with (Reagan and Greenspans prior help) 343-86, House 54-44 Pubs.