Gab wrote:
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Bill Clinton blazed the trail to oil company mergers to dwindle to only 5 entities making the price controls we see today much easier.
It was during Bubbas watch again when Fannie&Freddie got on the Government pay roll.
Just the other day Bubba admitted he should have tightened up on the restrictions when he was President.
And uhh, the Republicans lauded Clinton for his "pro-business" policies.
As for Fannie & Freddie, both sides share blame (pretty much the entire Board of Directors were heavy Republican contributors who pushed for deregulation)- but the whole sub-prime mess would have happened w/o Fannie & Freddie.
The big mortgage companies (such as Countrywide) threatened to by-pass Fannie & Freddie altogether if they didn't start accepting some of the more risky loans that the mortgage companies were making - since Wall St. banks were eager to buy them and slice them up and resell them to investors.
The problem was the whole DEREGULATION and weakening of enforcement which was pushed by Phil Gramm (which also resulted in the oil bubble and Enron).
And this whole excess/live off credit didn't really come to fore until Bush's terms (it was the only way his administration could keep the economy going - spend, spend, spend; you remember how he urged Americans to go shopping after 9/11 and the thing that Bush pushed and was most proud of w/ regard to his domestic agenda was the rise in home ownership).
Btw, I'm saying this as a lifelong Republican and fiscal hawk.