I've been reading over the past few days some stuff about the current financial crisis we find ourselves in as a country. And while I haven't read the whole articles (because they were extremely boring, like reading Leviticus and Numbers in the bible. you know you need to read them to get the info, but you don't want to because it's boring, so you just skim through it and read the parts that sound most important. While doing just that I found out some interesting stuff that kind of proves some stuff I've been thinking for a while.

The Financial Crisis is not President Bush's Fault.

Not entirely anyways

I think the first thing people need to realize is that Bush is not to blame, regardless of what he has or hasn't done. He is actually the third most powerful part of the government, with the Supreme Cort and Congress as #1 and 2 respectively. I'll get into that in a different post.

So anyone who wants to get mad about the bail out plan, place the blame where it belongs. Congress was responsible for that. Bush may have signed it, but they are the ones who came up with it.

Now to the causes. Since he has been president for the past 8 years, Bush must be to blame right? Wrong. some of the causes can be linked back to the Clinton Administration. For example Clinton started the push, which Bush has continued, for people to own homes, which resulted in banks giving more and bigger loans to people that wouldn't have gotten them before, including Illegal Immigrants! And two of the biggest groups issuing loans such as this were Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac. As a result Sub prime Mortgage loans rose by about 25% a year between 1994 and 2003 and set the stage for the current crisis (all these mentions of Crisis makes me feel like I am writing a post about the history of the DC Universe)

Thought this was kind of interesting. Ron Paul predicted this would happen when he addressed Congress in 2003 (A link to the speech can be found heretoo bad no one in the republican party wanted him to be president. Could have been him on the ballot and not McCain. I would have known who I wanted to vote for then. As it is I'm voting for Ric Flair.

All of this has effectively been brewing since the early 80s with the Savings And Loan crisis. To resolve the crisis, the Government bailed out the S&Ls. This lead to the creation of groups such as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, as well as a feeling in the banking world of "Who cares what will happen, the Government will bail us out if we run into trouble." With no reason to fear failure due to that safety net, they were free to do what they wanted, much like the rich kid who doesn't fear getting in trouble because "My dad's a lawyer" or the high school athlete in a small town who doesn't have to worry because he is the star quarterback.

So to say this is all Bush's fault is misleading. I'm not to say he isn't to be held faultless, I'm just saying spread the blame around. Don't like the bail out plan, yell at Congress. Don't like the banking institutions, yell at the people that bailed out the S&Ls.

And ultimately, don't like the way things are being run, vote for candidates that will do things the way you think they should be run. whether republican or Democrat or third party.