Anjin, you keep on claiming I'm always defending Republicans.

Really? Please show where I have ever said that. Even one example will do. There is nothing wrong with defending one's party as long as one is also able to discuss it's shortcomings.

If you presented a few balanced arguments, people would take you seriously. Your need to blame all on Democrats borders on pathology, and your weak attempts to walk things back when you are called on your BS do not impress. Saying that "you never defended Bush" is hardly the same as holding him accountable for his part in the problem.

You seem to think I am a hopelessly partisan ideologue. Here, watch this.

Anjin-San says that both Democrats & Republicans are to blame for the financial mess. Leaders of both parties have served us very poorly. The private sector also played its part, as did millions of private citizens.

See? it's not that hard.

As in this case.

"the whole thing' is the economic failure under discussion. Were you hoping I'd changed the subject?

The whole thing is directly tied to Democrats trying to buy votes with housing

Bit, how do you define "The whole thing". To most of us it means, you know, The whole thing. You make a blatantly partisan attempt to blame everything on Democrats, then when your rather lame position is shredded, your response is "well, exactly my point". Please...

FWIW anjin, that's the reason I don't let Bush off the hook. Those things you mention were gasoline on the flames. It would have been a fire anyway, but ...

Well, exactly my point. Look closely, and you'll notice I've never defended Bush on this point. As I keep saying... and nobody notices... Bush, like his father, is at best a centrist... he's no conservative. THere's a major difference, however, between the exact proposals of Bush to the matter, and what was placed into motion by the Clinton administration, in terms of altering CRA.

The whole thing is directly tied to Democrats trying to buy votes with housing

As early as February 2002, Bush said at a conference on retirement savings, “I want America to be an ownership society, a society where a life of work becomes a retirement of independence.” Even as Texas governor, he told senior citizens: “Ownership in our society should not be an exclusive club. ... Everyone should be a part owner in the American dream.”

In his Jan. 20 inaugural address, Bush offered a grand vision of newly empowered Americans: “To give every American a stake in the promise and future of our country, we will bring the highest standards to our schools, and build an ownership society.

"We're creating...an ownership society in this country, where more Americans than ever will be able to open up their door where they live and say, welcome to my house, welcome to my piece of property," Bush said in October 2004.

It was Margaret Thatcher who pioneered a solution. The effort centered on Britain's public housing, or council estates, which were filled with die-hard Labour Party supporters. In a bold move, Thatcher offered strong incentives to residents to buy their council estate flats at reduced rates (much as Bush did decades later by promoting subprime mortgages).

Clearly, it was all the fault of those darned Democrats...

One of the strongest proofs in that book was that the housing bubble was actually international. When houses bubbled in Spain and Australia and in the US, it's kind of hard for a reasonable person to think it was tied to a US party.

Shiller's observation was that houses spiked in "jet set cities" -- cities with an international airport. That was a better correlation than being in the same country. Los Angeles prices had more in common with Vancouver than with rural Kansas.

Epic fail - and this is probably a critical failure on the far right. That fringe loves markets, as many of us do, but cannot talk honestly about bubbles, manias.

No sale. The whole thing is directly tied to Democrats trying to buy votes with housing... and do try to approach that one honestly.

You ignore that absent governmental manipulation of the housing market, none of this would have ever happened.

Epic fail - and this is probably a critical failure on the far right. That fringe loves markets, as many of us do, but cannot talk honestly about bubbles, manias.

(I do note that you successfully tide one delusion to the next, to the next, to the next, until you completely the loop.)

I thought you were a capitalist, Bit. Did you just say "penalizing?"

What else wuld you call what Schumer's insisting on, then?

We have a company here that would be dead and gone, bankrupt, without a government bailout.

You ignore that absent governmental manipulation of the housing market, none of this would have ever happened.

Bit is a "new Republican." He thinks government involvement can only be "free money" because anything else distorts the market.

Now what, are you a socialist? Is that the next step, government ownership and bonuses for everyone ran that ship onto the rocks?

That aside, do we really want this level of governmental involvement after the fact?

Do you really understand WHY?

The choices seem to be:

a) they were dumb and thought they'd make money forever

and

b) they were smart, and thought it would ultimately fail, but they'd still have their bonuses.

Someone ("Mr. Market?") sure gift-wrapped a narrative for them, didn't they?

Shouldn't have been all that hard to predct business acting like (gasp)business!

Do you understand that what they did was write too many one-sided instruments? It was like a bookie taking a fat book of bets on the Super Bowl, but only for one outcome, and without enough money to pay the loss if it went that way.

This is a key question in the narrative, about the nature of our markets, regulation, and safety nets going forward.

Do you really understand WHY?