On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 8:23 AM, Patrick Bond <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > But why not leave this sometimes trivial, overly-normative policy chat > behind and get more of the structural analysis into it... and call the > problem combined and uneven development amplified by financial bubbling, > during a more general capitalist crisis exacerbated by the neoliberal > regime. Isn't that the best way, analytically, to approach sub-prime?
Patrick, This may seem trivial, but I think it is a very important discussion because the response to the crisis is going to be very much shaped by our understanding of what caused it. David is hardly alone in thinking that well-intentioned efforts to help the poor at least partly led to the crisis. I think it is important to produce the facts that show that this is clearly not the case. In your big picture analysis the bubble comes from a crisis of capitalism. Fair enough. But the small pictures details are important too. In this case there was nothing inevitable about the housing bubble. Extensive corruption (Wall St, rating cos, regulators), fraud (mortgage brokers) and ideological blindness (Alan Greenspan) made this possible. -raghu. -- Seeing is deceiving. It's eating that's believing. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
