> No greedy like the bankers who told them they could afford it. > > Greedy like the appraises who gave an incorrect value for the house. > > Greedy like the bankers who foreclosed instead of correcting the original > error. > > Greedy like the bankers who flooded the market with empty homes, forcing > the market into a death spiral.
I love this narrative. It's everyone else's fault. Escpecially those damn, dirty capitalists. Of course it wasn't the home sellers and home buyers. They're just innocent bystanders. The sellers wanted to sell for what they paid for the house, but the mean old bankers made them charge more. And the home buyers? Well, they knew those mean old bankers would shoot their familes like they promised they would if they didn't pay these inflated prices. Power-mad, like Barney Frank and co., puffed up and snarling, who berated and threatened Fannie and Freddie into buying up more and more sub-prime and alt-a mortgages for "low income" home buyers, which threw perverse and distortive incentives into the mortgage market. Misguided like Alan "Mr. Exuberence" Greenspan and Ben "Helicopter Money" Bernake, whose ultra-cheap credit was the gas on the fire in the first place. I'll tell you a little secret, Tom: there weren't any clean hands in this mess. Everyone involved contributed. ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
