Politics and Culture

Obama declined to cast blame on any one person for the crisis but he did take shots at McCain for his support of deregulation.

"I read the other day that Sen. McCain likes to gamble. He likes to roll those dice," he said. "One thing I know is this -- we can't afford to gamble on four more years of the same disastrous economic policies we've had for the last eight."

From here.

Obama, playing out the clock. He offers no arguments, explanation. Nothing. It's all about "McBush."

Set aside that it was government encouraging banks to lend money to the uncreditworthy started the mess in the first place (Not the whole mess, but it probably wouldn't have reached crisis proportion if the banks had made a certain percentage less bad loans.).

If there was less government intervention in the markets, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac wouldn't even exist!

Here

By STEVEN A. HOLMES
Published: September 30, 1999

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.