[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdJhHsAdXro[/youtube]
Wall Street Did It?
Based on the number of toxic loans in the system in 2008, the government was responsible for not just a simple majority, but more than two-thirds. It's quantifiable — 71% to be exact. And the remaining 29% of private-label junk was mostly attributable to Countrywide Financial, which was under the heel of HUD and its "fair-lending" edicts.
To be fair, the blame-Wall Street narrative has cemented in the public consciousness, and is hard to crack. That's because in the wake of the crisis, the Obama White House and Pelosi-Reid Congress engineered a cover-up of Washington's role in the mess through the Democrat-led Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. The national media now defer to it as the final authority on what caused the crisis and ensuing recession.
While not blameless, Wall Street is an easy scapegoat. And investment houses that made billions slicing and dicing mortgages into CDOs, derivatives, credit default swaps and other exotic paper are easy to demonize. But the problem wasn't these financial instruments. Or even the obscene profits they generated. Mortgage-backed securities were nothing new, and we've always had speculation in the market.
The problem was the underlying assets: low-quality mortgages. We've never had so many junk home-loans poisoning the financial well before. And who poisoned the well? Washington and its affordable-housing policies.
Investors Business DailyFor the record, Bush and the Republicans tried to rein in Freddie and Fannie 3 times and were blocked by Democrats led by Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Nancy Pelosi, etc.
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzCG80Wz4mg[/youtube]
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPSDnGMzIdo[/youtube]
