How Did We Get Into Such A Mess?

Rev,
What it boils down to is that principled, Goldwater type libertarian conservatives recognize that this administration's claim of conservativism is a fraud. Those "conservatives" that continue to excuse Bush's crimes are prompted by either fear, dislike of taxes, religious zealotry, racism, classism, homophobia, or outright stupidity.

Dislike of taxes, frank. The stupid religious zealouts have all flocked to The Chosen One.

You make some valid points. I would not argue that many of the policies of the Bush administration were for their benefit and many of their well heeled supporters. But when are you going to open your eyes and realize that both sides are working not for this country but to benefit themselves and their respective special interest groups. Take just one of your issues. It wasnt deregulation that doomed the housing market it was all the politicans and the related bureacracies that promoted and profited from this feeding frenzy. As usual sound policy was ignored for the purposes of the elite enriching themselves and our beloved leaders curring favor with the public and also reaping the finacial gain from the lunacy. Hell Countrywide the mean corrupt villian in this farce received award after award from numerous government agencies for their wonderful work in helping the poor and minorites. Not only are many of the people that bought houses during the frenzy quilty along with the grreedy lending institutions government officals at all levels are just as liable for this abortion. Instead o holding our leaders accountable they have us playing the game of demoninizing the other side and wasting time fighting among ourselves and the game goes on unabated. One side expalins the need to protect the markets and the other wails about the suffering of the people.
As usual what is the result? The politicans take money we cant afford and spend it to help the groups that donate the money that afford the bastards the ability to go on scamming us. To paraphrase George Soros(one of your heros I assume) the American people are so intent on feeling good that we ignore reality. We have had it so good for so long and our leaders have conditioned us to belive that everything will be taken care of with no additional pain we have become sheep.

Very well said, angry.

I totally agree that both political parties are at fault here. I do.

Don't tell anyone, angry, but I actually regard your comments much more seriously than other conservatives.

Here you say…

"It wasnt deregulation that doomed the housing market it was all the politicans and the related bureacracies that promoted and profited from this feeding frenzy."

While it is true that politicians received campaign money from banking corporations to deregulate their industry….it is also true that the deregulation, itself, led directly to the crash. The deregulation medicine is what poisoned the patient.

But I'm with ya' on taking down the corporate politicians. I want them out. I want Schumer out. I want Feinstein out. I want Reid out. Lieberman. Many others.

See angry….here's how I see it. The Democratic Party has fewer folks to remove to make stuff whole again. I'm guessing about 35% of the Democrats need sent back home…..while that number would be closer to 80% on the GOP side.

And frank has it right, again.

thanks for the comment Rev. For years and years I was very liberal on domestic issues I assume because I was a product of the 60's, spent way to many years in school and also because of the silver spoon and white man quilt(yes, I am oe of the few that will admit it did shape my thinking).

frank, I agree with you that this administration's claim to consevatism is a fraud. One caveat: Bush's tax cuts were the right thing to do when viewed alone (to stimulate the economy), but when you combine those tax cuts with Bush's massive spending increases plus two wars…not good at all. Bush isn't my kind of conservative, or even any kind of fiscal conservative in my book, even though I don't really buy into many of the wild accusations that are thrown around about him by the left. Some of the Rev's critique was valid, other parts were not.

Angry C – excellent post. The part where you stated that the government pushed the banks into making bad loans to those who couldn't really afford them was right on point. I experienced that process personally at a bank I worked for. The government placed banks in the position of either making creative, risky loans (to help the poor move up) or be vilified (which no bank can withstand, since they depend on public perception). Now, of course, the government conveniently forgets they did those things, even as they pass a mortgage bailout program that practically begs the banks and mortgage companies to do the same thing all over again, by letting them know the government (taxpayers) has their back if things go bad, which they will.

King's response to angry falls short for this reason:

Deregulation led directly to no money down mortgages and, in some cases, up to 107% of the appraised value of the house was loaned with no collateral. Ridiculous.

The seminar that I attended around 2003 offered paper that I couldn't believe. Now I see why I couldn't believe it.

Yes, the government wanted to put people into their own homes, but that's not where the basic fault lies. It's in the schemes, themselves.

And that's only the sub-prime problem. A big share of this bad paper originates with middle class dumbasses who thought they could go all HGTV and "flip" their houses on speculation. It was all supposed to simply be a fast money kind of thing, you know, like on the teevee. So the dumbasses signed dumbass ARM mortgages and now can't pay the monthlies.

But the real fault lies with the gamblers who bundled all this sh*tpile (as Atrios coined it) and sold it to other paper shufflers who then leveraged that pile, sometimes 16-1, in order to gamble on stocks and options.

No regulation…no problem….GOP creed. Let the free as a bird market, you know, breathe. That creed led directly to the collapse.