Bfgrn
Gold Member
- Apr 4, 2009
- 16,829
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Yes, the OP did use the term, but the OP used it properly, and you went on to blame the free market, which doesn't actually exist, for not fixing the collapse in 2008. I pointed out how absurd that is, and you accuse me of obfuscating.
I still want to know how something that doesn't exist is responsible for the problems we face and also responsible for not responding to a government created problem.
AGAIN...obfuscation. I guess I have to be more specific for someone who is this obtuse:
Where was the private investors when the economy and job loss was in free-fall in 2008?
How can you use a term 'properly', if it doesn't exist? You are correct ONLY in the fact there is no 'free market'...it never existed and it never WILL exist. It is a TOTAL misnomer and a right wing framing tool. The "free market" doesn't exist. There is no such thing. All markets are constructed. Think of the stock exchange. It has rules. The World Trade Organization has 900 pages of regulations. The bond market has all kinds of regulations and commissions to make sure those regulations carried out. Every market has rules.
What happened in this country was a failure of the PRIVATE sector. The government's failure was a lack of regulations, lack of proper oversight and unwillingness to arrest, prosecute and incarcerate the criminals on Wall Street and PRIVATE lending institutions.
The private investors were where they always are, investing. The problem was that the artificially inflated housing bubble, which was created by the government to artificially prop up the economy, burst. That was not caused by private investors, and cannot be fixed by them, especially when they do not have a free market to work in.
The private investors were not investing in jobs. And the private banks were not lending to private investors.
The artificial housing bubble was created by private lending institutions that fall outside government regulations and were 'free' to prop up their bottom line, by mostly wealthy speculators whose only criteria was securing low or no down payment loans because they had no intention of occupancy. And credit rating agencies (CRA) who gave their blessing to garbage loans.
But if you insist on blaming government, then Bush and Paulson are your men...
Maybe you just FORGOT...
Bush's 'ownership society'
"America is a stronger country every single time a family moves into a home of their own," George W. Bush said in October 2004. To achieve his vision, Bush pushed new policies encouraging homeownership, like the "zero-down-payment initiative," which was much as it soundsa government-sponsored program that allowed people to get mortgages without a down payment. More exotic mortgages followed, including ones with no monthly payments for the first two years. Other mortgages required no documentation other than the say-so of the borrower. Absurd though these all were, they paled in comparison to the financial innovations that grew out of the mortgagesderivatives built on other derivatives, packaged and repackaged until no one could identify what they contained and how much they were, in fact, worth.
As we know by now, these instruments have brought the global financial system, improbably, to the brink of collapse.
End of the Ownership Society