Bailouts I Have Known
(Cross posted at "McCain Flails, WAMU Falls")
I am far from expert in this area, but over the last century there have been 3 (am I missing one?) major financial failures, the Depression in '29, the Savings and Loan scandal in the '80s, and now this. I am not sure of the causes, but the striking thing about all of them is that Republicans were in office each time. Only Ike's 8 years seem to be free from this type of collapse (perhaps because of residual effects from the war? or just a very big economy in relation to the rest of the world? I don't know).
What I do know is while Democrats are hardly blameless in these events, they do seem to aim to correct them in ways -- good and bad -- that rebuild the American economy. And whenever Republicans find they have enough administrative time in office to mess with financial structures/protections, they manage in one way or the other to grab/swindle/steal/loot/fleece -- pick your verb -- the system. It is never the same method, but the taxpayer winds up propping up the system to keep everyone, including, alas, the culprits themselves, afloat.
How do we avoid this? How do we protect the homeowner who bought into the system? We bought houses in 80, 86 and 2004. The first two required 20% down and would only go 2 and 1/2 times our income, the last we could have gone with less down and much more than 2 and 1/2 times. We stuck with the old model because we didn't like anything higher, but other homeowners, new to the system maybe or happy with their new higher house price bracket, obviously bought in. Are they really the ones to blame? How do you protect them from a flawed model for determining their loan size?
Anybody got an answer? Anybody else believe it?
I am far from expert in this area, but over the last century there have been 3 (am I missing one?) major financial failures, the Depression in '29, the Savings and Loan scandal in the '80s, and now this. I am not sure of the causes, but the striking thing about all of them is that Republicans were in office each time. Only Ike's 8 years seem to be free from this type of collapse (perhaps because of residual effects from the war? or just a very big economy in relation to the rest of the world? I don't know).
What I do know is while Democrats are hardly blameless in these events, they do seem to aim to correct them in ways -- good and bad -- that rebuild the American economy. And whenever Republicans find they have enough administrative time in office to mess with financial structures/protections, they manage in one way or the other to grab/swindle/steal/loot/fleece -- pick your verb -- the system. It is never the same method, but the taxpayer winds up propping up the system to keep everyone, including, alas, the culprits themselves, afloat.
How do we avoid this? How do we protect the homeowner who bought into the system? We bought houses in 80, 86 and 2004. The first two required 20% down and would only go 2 and 1/2 times our income, the last we could have gone with less down and much more than 2 and 1/2 times. We stuck with the old model because we didn't like anything higher, but other homeowners, new to the system maybe or happy with their new higher house price bracket, obviously bought in. Are they really the ones to blame? How do you protect them from a flawed model for determining their loan size?
Anybody got an answer? Anybody else believe it?
