The Crisis...by Richard

I am pleased to say that we have a guest writer! My good friend has prepared this insightful post and I hope you will take the time to read it. He knows what he's talking about! Take it away...Richard

The current economic crisis and deep recession are not the fault of the Republicans. Nor is it the fault of banking executives asking to do away with banking regulations.
The Clinton campaign slogan "It's the economy stupid," left me wondering what he intended to do to an economy that was in pretty good shape. That question has been answered. HE DESTROYED IT!
Clinton stated that credit standards were de facto profiling and set about lobbying Congress to reorganize the very basis of financial enterprise by lowering standards across the board for measuring creditworthiness. Congress placed the most at-risk segment of our population in greater peril by encouraging the packaging of mortgage paper into investment bundles that remove single lien holders with power to deal with delinquency from the marketplace. The replacement committees of thousands of investors could not act to address problems. The guild of "growing the economy" by destroying the control mechanisms long respected by producers, merchants and consumers is the Clinton plan that the 1998 Democrat-controlled Congress turned into the piece of work that brought us to calamity.
President Bush fought for a return to sensible lending practices from his first day in office, but he was branded an "idiot" by people who paid no attention to the now obvious peril spawned by the charismatic charlatan who preceded him - people who gladly cursed the President who tried to save them. The bankers could follow the rules or drink hemlock. We are in this mess because we bought into the Clinton myth without examining the consequences.
Following World War II, we rode a wave of optimistic prosperity. Keeping up with the Joneses required a new car every three years. The new car had to have innovations for our comfort and safety, do-dads for social climbing, and increased power. Cars and toasters became disposable. In 1970, a six year old car brought just 10 percent of it's original retail value. The Big Three suffered no demand for, and thus had no incentive to build economic durability. The rest of the world had not the means to replace a vehicle on a whim and the goal of the foreign auto makers became economic longevity. It is no miracle that a 20 year old Subaru gets 30 miles per gallon and is road worthy after 4000,000 miles. It is no wonder that the Big Three did not produce its equal given the American penchant for power, show and waste.
The gas crunch of the mid seventies slapped us to attention but we soon returned to our demand for whimsical satisfaction. The Big Three did, in fact, give us what we ask for: Eleven cup holders, six power ports, back seat entertainment centers, electronics to tell us where we are and want to be, closed circuit TV systems to show us where we've been, and the gas guzzling power to haul it around.
We bought into the American dream at a level we could not afford and bankers were forced to provide the credit we demanded or run the risk of prosecution on trumped up charges. There was no one in the American marketplace who forced us to forfeit earnings to buy perishables. We signed on the dotted line because our greed couldn't stand the thought that someone else had more toys than us. If there was a villain, separate from the miscreants of 1998, it was those among us who continued to live as if there was no tomorrow. It was those of us who returned incompetent schemers to congress who refused the concept of personal responsibility. It was people preaching resistance to Bush's efforts to return us to sensibleness. Now we all suffer for their having committed us to a trip through yesterday's pleasures paid for with tomorrow's dollars.
No President, no Congress, no dream can undo the mess we're in. We need a nation to forsake "we need what we want" ambitions and embrace a more realistic "let us WORK for what we need " attitude.