One could write novels on who’s responsible for our current economic situation – likely thousands upon thousands of novels are already underway. I believe the failure lies entirely with the lack of regulation in the markets, both with rating agencies and with insurance credit default swaps. You solve both those (create a firewall/Glass-Steagall-Act-style barrier for rating agencies, and an open marketplace and regulatory requirements for anything that has even the slightest whiff of being insurance) and you would have prevented the whole disaster. I can’t say who is at fault for not enacting these earlier.
But I can say who the financial liberals (aka Republicans) think is at fault: Obama (and to a lesser extent, Freddie and Fannie Mae). Despite the fact that Obama took office in January of this year, some how he’s to blame. Or the fact that Freddie and Fannie, who rolled up around $5 trillion of the mortgage market and another $2.3 trillion in derivative transactions (http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11751139) – but the rest of the market was over $60 trillion in derivative transactions – these are the guys to blame. , Look at this snippet:
Since it became apparent that Barack Obama would be elected president at the end of September 2008, the stock market has steadily declined.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/03/022973.php
Ok, even that is stretching it a bit far. You’re blaming a guy who hasn’t even been elected president yet for the failure of the market? That’s like Obama turning around and blaming whomever is going to be elected in 2012/2016 for the countries current situation. Or the pilot who steps into the cockpit after the plane is already in a nose dive. Just ridiculous.
