Quote:
Originally Posted by cpg35223
Awfully potent crack you're smoking there. The Home Equity Loan movement was already in full force by the late 1990s. I remember LTVs at 125 and 150% as early as 1997. I remember the alarm bells being rung during the Russian debt crisis of 1998, for crying out loud.
God, I am neither Republican nor Democrat. I don't care for Bush at all, never had. But when a poster like you wants to lay everything at the feet of the Bush administration when the policies that caused this issue were going full steam 6-7 years before he ever took office, that's just wholesale dishonesty on your part. Either that or just ignoring the facts that don't fit your tidy little narrative, even when facts those abound.
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I bought a home in 1997, the prices were not skyrocketing, and it was not the easiest thing to get loans, they still required money down and effort.
I do agree to one thing. The dismantling of Glass-Steigel under Clinton, certainly set many financial institution up to become what they never should have been. I will also say, the boom of the late 90's was in part due to our massive obsessions with "imports" and at the same time, our insanity obsession with "outsourcing", which made a lot of paper shifting, which created an illusions we were growing, when we really had become nothing more than a mass of mini malls, across the nations, selling S. Korean Goods, which quickly became dominated by Chinese goods. the internet bubble collapsed, The Clinton Free Trade agreement was a disaster for America, because it only opened the door for China to more easily by pass our import quota system, so we got flooded with Chinese, S. Korean, and every other Asian Pacific and Far Eastern companies goods. the profits we saw were contained in the hands of the industrialist who had become mass importers, and shut down production units in America, so the money shuffle during the Clinton terms, was not good money, as it cost us to loose the industrial foothold we once had. It did produce a surplus, but that surplus was not sustainable. So, there was a surplus when Bush took office, but no means to sustain it. There was and
had been too much outsourcing to have the industrial capacity to fix the economy. Bush in some ways inherited an economy that was fractured, with too many holes to hold water.
Then as I said, (as I posted in previous post) Bush tried all his options to get the economy moving, but they all failed. then the Energy game fizzled, guess you don't remember Enron, 2001 scanda
l in which $100bn in revenue from energy giant Enron was found to have sustained itself by means of institutional and systematic accounting fraud, then came the collapse of Global Crossing, Aldephi and the various others that collapsed. Arthur Andersen's accounting Scandal exposed many of financial game plays that resulted into many other financial losses. (this in part because all the Board Members, were also playing on different boards, and they all bought into the Arthur Anderson Accounting Practices), the result is many business collapsed and the collateral effect on many other business, was a disaster.
I don't think its hap-hazard to lay much at the foot of Bush,
but equally so, the things allowed since even the GB 1st Presidency as well as the bubble effect of the Clinton Presidency all figures into the equation, and they cannot be left blameless in the over-all outcome.
America had lost its Industrial Position as the Bush Presidency Began, because the only words heard during Clinton Administration was,
"Outsource" ,
"Networking" and
"Consolidation",
which eroded the American Industry to a very critical level, we had become a nation relying on financial paper shuffling as the bulk of our GDP.
Where Bush lost was he did not grasp the need to become robust in trying to re-industrialize American, instead we became a borrowers of Chinese Money which propped up much of the "credit spending" of the American Public.
Then when 9/11 hit, everything went into a tail spin.
Basically the only point of value left in the American Landscape was the equity in peoples homes.
Take it from that aspect and you may see the perspective of what followed. Now add in the War Cost, and then double that by fighting two wars on two different lands, with no industrial capacity to fund these wars.
I don't know if you are drinking spiked cool aid, which is filled with denial potion. because if you look across the span of three Presidencies, Bush 1st, Clinton, and Bush 2nd. It was a disaster, GB 1st pushed a great deal with his "New World Order" ideology. And wealth transfer from American began its massive shift to the Asian Pacific, and ultimately to China, and with the Wars came spikes in Oil prices which sent more wealth to Arab nations.
When Bush took office, Oil was under $20 a bbl, it reached a height of $147 a bbl, during the Bush Presidents, with Wars and Importations, which equated to 30 billion a month, we had 30 more billion a month drained off in Iraq, and xx billions more a month drained off in Afghanistan, this does not even count the trade imbalances with our #1 and #2 Trading Partners, Canada and Mexico. We suffered a trade deficit with practically all our trading partners.
That is a non sustainable scenario under anyone's guidance as President. It just happen that it all culminated under the Bush 2nd's Presidency. It was further damaged when he made the threats to our allies, to back the invasion of Iraq. That put bad relations upon the US through out the rest of his presidency. It also, set up China to be free to focus on targeting any and every kind of industry in America, until it simply took over and ran our industries out of business, with the massive dumping of Chinese Goods. Sadly, that was not focused upon, due to all the focus going to "2 Wars". We ignored the fuel cost which quadrupled our war fighting cost and the domestic cost for the exaggerated fuel cost. It cost us dearly. as it put more money in the hands of terrorist to expanding and sustain their fighting. which double back and cost us to remain engaged in war even longer at higher cost.
Sadly, in the mix of the derivatives games, other nations followed suit, playing the Derivatives games, until when it was finally crashed and exposed, it found out that Wall Street had cheated, selling twisted securities, with non performing mixed with performing being sold as
A rated paper. Then if you remember, Moody's got tagged for collusion, in supporting the false rating of the paper Wall Street sold.
When any country is the leader, and others follow suit creating the same games in their lands, when the leader crashed, the followers are going down with them, because everyone was playing the same games. The European Collective have not recovered.
The sad part of the whole thing, only the Nordic Regional Nations and China came out ok, India came out pretty much un changed, because they have much of their trade done in the streets. Besides they were making a windfall, because we'd outsourced all our call centers to them, until they became the call center mecca.
Now, roll all that back to consider what was meant by "The New World Order", and it tells of the shifts where American thought it could sustain itself by " paper shuffling'.
Invariably, we proceeded to dismantle its Industrial Complex, in pursuit of slave wage labor on foreign soils. Unaware that other countries would eventually gain wealth and techniques to manage their own money.
By the Mid 2000's China had dismissed many of the American Business men it "Used" to help it build inroads and transfer industrial capacity to its lands, replacing them with Chinese Businessmen as their corporate leaders. By Then we had no more leveraging powers, and had become indebted to China. Dependent on them to buy our Treasury Securities, by 2007 China said it would buy fewer securities and began to purchase more Gold. This meant we had to borrow more from China.
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Bush ignored the fact that after 9/11 the Terrorist stated their aim was to bring American to its economic knees. This is why "Bush" should have focused more on strengthening American, instead of more expenditure in War and more Borrowing.
I lay much at the feet of GB 2nd because the obsession and cost of Two Wars, took the focus from "fixing problems" in this country, and for the whole of the second term, that presidency was won, talking about nothing but focus on Bin Laden and Terrorism, while American crumbled at the core. We ignored Infrastructure, Industry and many things, and what we found was greater industrial collapse and bankrupt cities and ultimately a collapsed economy. While we still burned billions per month with Two Wars and escalating trade deficits and more borrowing.
If you remember, the Chinese President made a world tour, and he
pledged cash for oil at
a bench mark of $50 a bbl, That set the stage for oil to go astronomical in cost. But he also gave Bush a book, “The Art of War”, if Bush has read the book, he would have seen, it stated, that wars waged on foreign lands was unsustainable, and would result in the country fighting on foreign soil, to see its own home land decline in economics and functions.
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