How has the recession affected your life

[Detroitej72]

True enough. However, each state also regulates its own banking. In states that had stiffer regualations, very few savings and loans went bankrupt. A very high percentage of the bankrupt savings and loans were in Califronia and Texas which had lax banking regulations. These two states had benefitted from their respective loose S&L regulations during good times having the advantage of expanding their economies faster than states with tighter regulations. The pity of this is that when CA and TX S&L's went bankrupt, the federal government stepped in to bailout CA and TX with taxpayer money from other states. So, in the end, CA and TX benefited on the upside from loose regulations and federal largesse when things went sour. As Lorax noted, "Privatize profits while socializing losses."

Bush's Wall Street bailout [[note to Lorax: Also heavily supported by Democrats including Obama) was an even more preposterous example of this. It was the large 'too big to fail' banks that the feds helped out while smaller state banks are allowed to go bankrupt. The FDIC is about broke now so we shall see how long this lasts. Rumors are that the FDIC is overlooking some situations now to avoid paying out money it doesn't have.

This is the most informative and intelligent post of the day, hell, maybe the year!

Good job Oladub, keep the information flowing.

[ccbatson]

Not thorough enough...it was deregulation and pressure on banks ON BEHALF OF FREDDY AND FANNY that created the bubble. It was not regulation of real market based bank practices.

[Detroitej72]

No matter how many times you have been proven wrong, you still cling to the myth created by morons like Rush, Hannity and their ilk that Freddy and Fannie caused the crisis.

I guess its true, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. Thank you Bats for proving that saying beyond a shadow of a doubt.

[ccbatson]

You ignore the video/audio of Barney Frank and Chris Dodd as the chief defenders of the problem with similar evidence of the opposition and advocates of reform [[McCain, Bush, Greenspan). These are not statements or videos from after the fact, rather prior to the collapse.

[ZRX Doug]

Rush, Hannity, et al may or may not be morons, but there is no denying that Franks was in bed [[both literally AND figuratively) with the F-M folks..why is it that corruption is okay when it's committed by your team, Mr. 72?

[ccbatson]

Let's not forget the money trail leading to Obama and Hilary either.

[oladub]

Not thorough enough...it was deregulation and pressure on banks ON BEHALF OF FREDDY AND FANNY that created the bubble. It was not regulation of real market based bank practices.

You can't blame everything on Fannie and Freddie. The Nasdaq bubble collapsed long before Fannie and Freddie were in trouble. The Fed had a cheap money policy which fueled the stock market bubble until it wobbled and collapsed. The Fed continued to flood the market with cheap money and directed much of it toward housing to pump up the economy. Same thing happened across the banking sector. Fannie and Freddie were only part of the collapse.

We were and are also dumping a lot of money into middle-east wars. I'm no fan of Fannie and Freddie but at least we got some useful products built with that money. War spending is like dumping money down a hole.

[ccbatson]

Oh yes you can...Freddie and Fannie were bigger fish and didn't fall until others took a dive 6-8 months earlier. The market dipped in response, but the real substantive problems were, and are, in the realm of banking/credit/real estate and corruption therein [[derivatives, toxic assets....all linked to Freddie and Fannie).