Ok, this is grim
I ain’t no econ fella, but I can read:
Is it possible that anyone with a pulse and a minimal ability to reason couldn’t see the inherent problems of building a humongous financial edifice on the prospect that millions of first-time homeowners with “a bad credit history and no collateral” would pay off there mortgages in a timely and responsible manner?
No. It is not possible. It was completely crazy…..and foreseeable! The real reason that the subprime swindle mushroomed into a humongous economy-busting monster is that the markets are no longer policed by any agency that believes in intervention. The pervasive “free market” ideology rejects the notion of supervision or oversight, and as a result, the markets have become increasingly opaque and unresponsive to rules that may assure their continued credibility or even their ability to function properly.
The “supply side” avatars of deregulation have transformed the world’s most vital and prosperous markets into a huckster’s street-corner shell-game. All regulatory accountability has vanished along with trillions of dollars in foreign investment. What’s left is a flea-market for dodgy loans, dubious over-leveraged equities and “securitized” Triple A-rated garbage.
