Category Archives: Scribbles

I haven’t read this book yet (though I have read this one by the same author), but I liked the neat summary below by one reviewer which encapsulates details I have seen elsewhere piecemeal:

“This is a very thorough book that carefully documents the major developments that led up to the financial melt-down of late 2007 including the CRA [Community Reinvestment Act], the governmental pressure to make home loans to lower-income citizens who could only marginally afford them, the resultant buy-back by the federal government of most of those loans so that banks were relieved of risk in making them, the not-surprising greed of the mortgage industry in promoting these loans, the virtual take-over of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by community activists, the establishment of an implied federal backing of this risk, and the resultant bubble that has burdened the tax-payers with more debt in less time than ever in our history.”

This cynical bit of social engineering by politicians who know nothing of economics and could care less—though they always blame capitalism for the shite they stir up—was before Obamaloot came along and added billions in crony handouts. You know, the so-called “stimulus” which has worked out so well.