The Official Presidential Debate Thread (Round 2)

they had it right. until someone decided it was time to DE regulate. thats what started the free fall. if you let the rats run wild, soon there will be no more cheese
President Clinton didn't think de-regulation was a bad idea. This bill was signed on his watch.

from wiki: "Others have defended the Act and for actually making the crisis less severe than it would have been otherwise. President Clinton himself stated:
"I don't see that signing that bill had anything to do with the current crisis. Indeed, one of the things that has helped stabilize the current situation as much as it has is the purchase of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America, which was much smoother than it would have been if I hadn't signed that bill. On the Glass-Steagall thing, like I said, if you could demonstrate to me that it was a mistake, I'd be glad to look at the evidence."

Telecommunications (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996), Media (http://www.fcc.gov/ownership/), and Banks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_Services_Modernization_Act).Saden that was really a stupid question I asked and I pretty much know the answer. We tore away at all the consumer protections that where put in place back in the 1930's. This was done a little at a time starting in the 1980's and then into the 1990's. I'm not sure if all the dergulation was bad but the oversite might have been the peoblem.

they had it right. until someone decided it was time to DE regulate. thats what started the free fall. if you let the rats run wild, soon there will be no more cheese

I totally agree that regulation was missing. I am not sure that anything that was DEregulated was a problem though. I haven't seen any concrete evidence that specific derugulations led to this. I have seen financial assessments showing that housing prices trended parallel to inflation for decades until the government decided to create an "affordable" housing market. When they started playing with the housing markets prices magically trended exponentially up. When some wanted more regulations in the late 90's and early 2000's there was significant backlash from all sides of the aisles and nothing happened. I tend to think it was the lack of regulation in the first place more than any dergulation but I'd happily peruse anything that said otherwise. I'd really like to understand fundamentally what went wrong and the argument that regulation or lack of it CAUSED the problem rings pretty hallow when there are gads of evidence that gov't regulation quite regularly justs screws things up even more. My philosophy is more in line with "If it supposedly needs regulation so much then maybe something is fundamentally wrong with it in the first place".

This is a very good read. Sorry that was not such a good read. Edit

And political correctness. Or more pointedly...they bought votes.

Please explain how political correctness brought down our economy.

Making shit up and passing opinions off as if they are facts is in style again eh? Weak!

I'd like to up the ante and blame the founders for this housing mess.

Making shit up and passing opinions off as if they are facts is in style again eh? Weak!

I'd like to up the ante and blame the founders for this housing mess.

What are you talking about? How am I passing an opinion off as fact?

Please explain how political correctness brought down our economy.

Politicians rigged the system so broke ass people who couldn't afford houses were able to get loans that banks historically would have never given. They did this because it sounded pretty darn nice to say they were creating "affordable" housing. Smart people who understood economics were saying that rigging the system so that these people could get houses they couldn't afford was a long term bad idea and no one listened. Hell they were called racist, even though it had nothing to do with race. These types of arguments have been called "racially tinged" even today.

And don't bother asking about references saden. Why don't you make an argument refuting this? Why isn't ANYONE making an argument refuting this? I'd love to hear the argument because I'd really like to understand this but I still haven't heard one person anywhere say "No that wasn't the cause."

Sorry, I don't personally believe that the government's role is to act as a mortgage lender. And... screw Wall Street. And Main Street. If you choose to *risk* your company's assets in shady, fundamentally poor investments and it comes back to bite you in the ass, that's on you. If you choose to *risk* your financial well being and purchase a home you cannot afford, that's on you. Everybody loves free/cheap money/assets but nobody wants to be responsible for their piss poor decision making. My own view is, let 'em fail, there will be a vacuum formed and new business will rush in to fill it. It may take time but I truly believe that would be the best in the long term. The way we're currently going, no one is going to learn ANYTHING from this mess. Everyone who screwed up and put us in this situation is going to get bailed out at the expense of everyone who was responsible. That's fucked up.

We are facing perhaps the greatest financial crisis in the entire history of our country; a crisis that could entail the collapse of thousands of businesses, the firing of millions of Americans, the break up of families, people going hungry, etc. and you're foremost concerned about punishing a few CEOs? Your opinion of the bailout shouldn't be based on a desire to punish bad businessmen, it should be based on a desire to make sure that the rest of us don't get hurt by their poor decisions.

Politicians rigged the system so broke ass people who couldn't afford houses were able to get loans that banks historically would have never given. They did this because it sounded pretty darn nice to say they were creating "affordable" housing. Smart people who understood economics were saying that rigging the system so that these people could get houses they couldn't afford was a long term bad idea and no one listened. Hell they were called racist, even though it had nothing to do with race. These types of arguments have been called "racially tinged" even today.

And don't bother asking about references saden. Why don't you make an argument refuting this? Why isn't ANYONE making an argument refuting this? I'd love to hear the argument because I'd really like to understand this but I still haven't heard one person anywhere say "No that wasn't the cause."


Trying to help low income individuals become home owners is "politically correct?" It might be stupid, but I don't think it's politically correct. Also, I don't know how race, including charges of racism, has any role in this debate.

As for the causes of the crisis, you yourself said there is a lot of blame to go around.