Who can we blame for this crisis - the democrats or the republicans?
Best Answer
127 points
pauljbass answered one year ago …
Look at ourselves! We all took advantage of the cheap money that Greenspan gave us for years. We drank this wine like there was no tomorrow, to buy McMansions , SUVs and Collateralized Debt Instruments. And now the cheap credit is over, the hangover has arrived, we've got to start living within our means, as a nation and as individuals. It starts with us as individuals AND collectively as a nation. There is no free lunch, and noone else is going to pay for our excess spending on wars or "bailouts". Both parties need to stop "blaming" the other and start making the difficult (i.e. conflicting, passionately defended choices) decisions necessary to bring our country out of this current mess.
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117 points
PCDDAVE answered one year ago …
Nobody is blameless, but I would say Barney Frank and Chris Dodd are numbers 1 and 2 in the lineup. The problems have been recognized for years. See this link : http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/09/20080919-15.html . But I don't hold hold the Whitehouse blameless either. They hardly made this issue a priority.
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381 points
SirCrashton answered one year ago …
Members of both parties had ample opportunity to increase oversight and/or rein in the irresponsible lending practices but chose to do nothing. The "Do Nothing" Congress is one reason Republicans lost their majority: they failed to take the initiative on any meaningful legislation that their constituents supported.
Read more from SirCrashton457 points
SallyG answered one year ago …
Ity's not a partisan issue. Banking institutions entrusted with deposits and investments forgot that they were supposed to be fiscally responsible. The industry has been gambling rather than investing, and over the long haul, gambling is a losing proposition. INstitutions that had been allowed only 12% leverage were allowed to push their levels up to 24 and 36%. Nobody, on either side of the aisle, paid attention or , if they did, didn't sound the alarm strongly enough or early enough. Consumers who had never experienced a SERIOUS recession thought growth could be sustained forever, with only minor setbacks in an ever-upward trend. Well, the bill is due.
Read more from SallyG150 points
tlune answered one year ago …
As Walt Kelly, the author of the old comic strip Pogo once had a character say - "We have met the enemy - and he is us!"
There is plenty of blame to go around for everybody, but I include myself when I say that "there is no free lunch." When you borrow money, you eventually have to pay it back, and if you borrow too much, you may get liquidated, often forcibly, when your assets decline in value or get spent.
130 points
HeyJuan answered one year ago …
Why blame any one political party?
What about the heads of the banks and mortgage companies who allowed these lending practices? The directors dealing in the credit swaps? The stockbrokers playing games with money that wasn't theirs? The builders who never considered that overbuilding was possible?
The two parties that both failed to see any need for regulations?
Lastly, Bush and Chaney, for wasting billions and billions of taxpayer funds on the Iraq war.
244 points
KenLong answered one year ago …
Passing blame is easy. Acknowledging and accepting our own roles in it is anouther thing. None of this would have happened if the people didnt allow it to. It doesnt require a great understanding, just old fashioned sense. You live within your means, if not you are gambling and you accept the outcome. You respect that which gives to you, if not you are abusive and deserve the outcome.
When we allow greed and ignorance to rule, we are responsible, even if we did not commit the act, and we have no choice but to live with the consequences. I am not saying there was a lot any one of us could have done to change the outcome or sway the powers, but most all of us are more interested in ourselves, in our own well being, than in the well being of the human race, the planet Earth, or the life system that supports us.
It is a choice of consciousness and connectedness, of living in harmony, of leaving the world, the human peoples, the universe, better for our having been here. Perhaps we will make it, perhaps we wont. Only time will tell.
