Among the Bush 2004 campaign supporters, including the largest single individual donor, were the CEOs of the front line mortgage lenders, most of whom were pressuring the GSEs for loose lending standards, in order to have them play a greater role in underwriting the subprime loans.

The two principal reasons for increased GSE participation in subprime loan participation were: 1) pressure from HUD and 2) pressure from investors.

He wants Freddie to do some more work on his Fannie.

The only ones who should be serving time for Fannie and Freddy Mae are the hot shot bankers who knowingly put people in homes that they knew before hand they'd be unable to pay for which allowed them to suck billions out of both them, hand the bill back to the American taxpayer to pay and themselves not serve a day in prison for their crimes.

What, the state of denial?

What a gem, I kill me.

If by gem you mean lump of coal, then yes, maybe in a million years after millions of pounds of pressure closing in on his bloated head, he could indeed be a gem.

Hmmm...yes. The fact that during this time, from 1994 to 2006, he was in the MINORITY in a House led by the Republican MAJORITY.

Yeah, that's what we need

Your logic baffles me...

So his lifestyle bothers you, but his intellect is "keen". Have you considered Barney's "keen" intellect chose his lifestyle?

Did you meen "idiot" when you said "keen"?

Ah yes...so sath SLUGGO, "hormones are the source of intellect." Curious. Where did you get your MD? Bob Jones University?

Hopefully some day you'll sneeze while standing next to a cliff. That's the kind of blow job somebody as ignorant as you deserves..... :)

He would be a perfect match for your other "Native American" Senator.

Why does MA elect such blatant frauds to represent them?

Errrr, it's pretty clear to the sane among us that Republicans are near solely responsible for the Real Estate and Financial Meltdowns..... Some things are just self evident.....

Oh yeah, Scott Brown voting against women's rights and the Middleclass every inch of the way is just what we need eh? You should try checking voting records before you blog.....

Sounds more like you need something stuck into your brain..... Intelligence would be a good start......

what are Brown's chances? seriously? maybe not so good, which is okay with me ... who is in the running in MA?

Heard a humor that Ole Barney can suck the chrome off a boat hitch!

Well since the Republicans have done nothing but rob the middleclass blind for 40 years, anything would be a better alternative..... Ever read Justice Lewis Powell's Memo? Didn't think so......

Hey ken.........you ever study economics? Didn't think so!

I've studied a little economics. What point did you want to make/

Stone.....good, then go run for office, get elected and show us the way to fiscal sanity. Educate me, just how do we not go bankrupt in the near future? Republicans as well as Democrats have screwed this pooch. Politicians didn't just f..k the middle class, they stole all the money; poor, middle class and rich. Whats your magic bullet?

No magic bullet. This all part of an evolving global economy, coupled to some demographic truths. Capitalism worked so well in the West (and a few other plac es, such as Japan), it has endangered itself.

First the demographics. Demographic "truth." As societies become wealthier, their birthrates fall. Given that these successful societies have freely chosen to support their aging populations through social programs such as social security and medicare, sparing the "ownership class" the necessity of supporting old age pensions and health care through the private sector, this has shifted the "burden" (and reliance) toward government.

We can slowly reverse that, but not simply by cutting out social benefits to reduce government spending. Rather, the private sector must give some indication that it is willing to pick up part of that burden itself. They have not. Most retirees, who depend entirely or for a major portion of their income and medical care on government, would be acting against their own self-interest to do anything other than try and squeeze more out of government benefits and higher taxation for the rich in order to preserve their benefits...even if it means additional government borrowing.

Even worse for our future prospects is that as the population ages, it's priorities change, away from materialism and consumerism, which has driven the economy, toward more government dependence. But that dependence isn't caused by ideology; it's caused by the reality of a private sector willingly abandoning what had heretofore, at the high point of the American middle class, been considered part of their corporate responsibility, in terms of retirement benefits and the encouragement of employee savings.

Sooo...as the middle class "priorities" move, with the retirement of the baby boomers, toward a greater focus on a secure retirement income and inexpensive medical care, they turn increasingly to government, not through any ideological desire, but because it's the only way to secure their goals.

The sum total of that is the "truth" that if the demographics of the West (and a few others, such as Japan) do not change, do not expect the goals of those societies to change either.

Regarding economics, the problem is two fold. One is the demographic connection discussed above. The second, is the unrestrained process of capitalism itself, which works very well at increasing global material wealth, based largely today on mass consumption. With the peace and stability of the post WW II world, which we largely established in the immediate post-war period, once our own post war private economy recovered, it was a "natural economic phenomenon" that capital should begin to shift overseas, not just because of lower labor rates or fewer regulations, but to gain access to future markets.

Most of our product-to-product competition is no longer with the emerging economies, but with other developed economies, as found in Japan, Korea, Tawian, and in primarily the developed nations of the European Union. Those countries have similar wage and benefit levels, universal health care and high regulatory costs.

So, the way forward is not to "go back" to labor intensive industries, which are long gone, but toward a future of higher value added exports...requiring improved infrastructure in everything from roads and bridges to health care and education.

The "New World Order" is to create a generasl "balance" of trade and services between labor intensive mass consumption products of the more populated Southern and Eastern hemispheres with infrastructure related products and services of the less populated Northern and Western hemispheres.

To simplify, 1,000 Boeing employees have to produce value equaling the value of the imported contents of 10,000 Wal-Marts.

That's the broad picture...doesn't mean that other economic principles will become invalid. Competitive advantage will differentiate based on an individual nation's resources and economic focus, etc., etc. And, eventually, the global economy will be more or less consistent everywhere...with people still "poor" (hopefully not too many), most people in a global middle class, and a few rich, across national borders.

This is basically the way things are already evolving.

One other post on "individualism" in this New World Order...next.