In my opinion, anyone in a position of power who is knowledgeable about economics, and tries to blame this on anything aside from the CRA or the federal reserve should be charged with fraud and sent to jail for a LONG time.

1. greenspan
2. paulson
3. bernake

come to mind.

And NetRunner, 3 out of 5 of the authors conclusions are complete nonsense. (2,3, and 5). This was CRA+federal reserve and theres just no way around it. His credientials as a tax lawyer say nothing about his credibility as an economists. Sh*t most economists credentials as economists say nothing about their credibility as an economist--why do you think we are in this mess!

Members of the Austrian school of economics have been screaming about this crash for the last 30+ years!

^This was government intervention through and through. The CRA set it up, and the federal reserve knocked it down.

"1. The Federal Reserve cut interest rates to as low as 1% (from 6%) so that after inflation we had negative interest rates.
2. As a result, mortgage rates fell to an all time low.(8% to 5%)
3. Low rates caused borrowing and lending to explode, particularly in real estate. For example, commercial banks more than doubled the amount of real-estate loans they made. ($1000 billion to $4000 billion)
4. All these low interest loans had to be extended to people with worse credit ratings and this increased the demand for homes and other real-estate assets. It should not be surprising that home prices skyrocketed"

source: http://mises.org/story/3130

Upvoting this because I agree that this is the primary cause for the subprime crisis.

It is ironic that people are proposing more regulation to correct this.

It seems to me, however, that this video tries to place blame in a very skewed way, especially given this comment from the CRA wikipedia article:

"In 2003, the Bush Administration recommended what the NY Times called "the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago." [10] This change was to move governmental supervision of two of the primary agents guaranteeing subprime loans, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac under a new agency created within the Department of the Treasury."

Isn't this exactly what the bill is going to achieve, along with a ton of other affected lenders?

The 2003 act didn't pass because there was no crisis then, so where does that leave us? Is it possible that the Bush administration knew what was going on from the outset, or did they have other intentions? Why would a pro "free market" republican administration want to regulate mortgage lenders in the first place?

I can fill in the blanks for Cenk. The talk-radio branch of the Republican party is pushing a line of bull about how the credit crisis is really the Democrats' fault.

It hinges on a piece of legislation called the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). The site describes the bill:

The Community Reinvestment Act is intended to encourage depository institutions to help meet the credit needs of the communities in which they operate, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods, consistent with safe and sound banking operations.

(emphasis mine)

Yes, the legislation was aimed at encouraging banks to do more lending to low-income buyers, and minorities. However, it was not requiring them to abandon the considerations of risk.

This diary from dKos fills in more detail, and has further references (from Government agencies) debunking this as being even a minor contributing factor to our current crisis.

Cavuto just forgot to mention the piece of legislation before race baiting.

Oh, and he was Olbermann's worst person tonight for this very comment.

CRA. very important acronym for the early 21st century.

whether religious people are crazy or not really depends on how you define crazy

cra·zy
–adjective
1. mentally deranged; demented; insane.
2. senseless; impractical; totally unsound: a crazy scheme

hmmmm
nahhh those people look VERY stable to me, no crazies there,
*starts chanting* "mooshalaka braralacka mooo BARALAKA MOOO MOTHERFUCKER!!!"

The comment in the end credits about the credit reporting agencies maintaining a special 'lenient list' for celebrities and lawmakers is particularly damning. It makes the CRAs look like a particularly sleezy part of the credit industry.

Holy cra.... Upvote for Gilbert Godfrey...