Did (9/11)terrorists cause the housing mess?

[underpants]

Source: MSN

The link may not seem obvious at first. But if you look at the Sept. 11 plotters' goals -- and at what has happened in the US since the attacks -- it's hardly far-fetched.

Having just spent five days in the disaster that is Florida real estate, it makes me wonder: Is it possible that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were the root cause of declining home values? Is it possible that subprime loans and speculative building/buying were no more than tools, the equivalent of hijacked airliners?

We were in the second year of a brutal three-year stock market decline when radical Islamic terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center. Even so, borrowed money wasn't dirt cheap. The federal funds rate, down from nearly 6% during the Internet boom years, was 3.65% in August 2001.

It fell to 1.75% within weeks of the terrorist attacks. Policymakers struggled to keep the economy from coming to a standstill.

But one big fact remains: None of this misery would have happened if Sept. 11 hadn't happened first.

Is there a bottom line here?

I think there is. As opponents, the terrorists have played us painfully well. They bleed us internally with financial upheaval. They bleed us externally with the cost of oil and military expenditures. Our leaders -- political and business -- have underestimated both our vulnerability and the strategic smarts of our opponents.



Read more: http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Banking/HomeFinancing/DidTerroristsCauseTheHousingMess.aspx

[Taverner]

1. No - it was the liburl media, Alan Alda and Michael Moore

:sarcasm: (in case that wasn't already apparent)

[gaspee]

3. no, no, no!

It's the CLENIS!

[Taverner]

4. Oh yeah - although shouldn't we blame Chelsea Clinton now?

I mean, McCain is!

[underpants]

5. I thought it was peanut allergies

No hold it wait that is liberal thing too. Liberals forced the airlines to switch to pretzels and basically that is why none of them know how to make any money.

:sarcasm:

[ixion]

2. Given that the 911 terrorists were BushCo

then yes, it's true.

[Horse with no Name]

6. I thought it was the illeeeeeeeeeeeeegal aliens? n/t

[underpants]

7. What we need is a fence, a wall if you will

one tall enough to stop airplanes

[Horse with no Name]

12. Well you know THEM

They'll just take rockets!:D

[Solly Mack]

8. uh...I...hmmm....

goodness

[underpants]

9. The headline is a keeper huh?

:eyes:

I think the guy who wrote this is more indicative of why those knuckleheads screwed up so bad.

[Solly Mack]

10. It is (a keeper) and... It is (indicative)

[OKthatsIT]

11. ROFLOL......GAWD, WHEN WILL AMERICA WAKE UP!

I know what you mean.

Social Psyops is getting tooooooooooo friggin OUT THERE. The NEOCONS ARE JUST TOO WARPED TO COMPREHEND, anymore.

[sinkingfeeling]

13. What utter bulls**t! If it were a 'terrorist' plot, then it happened in the broad rooms of America.

Here's what's causing the mess:
1) National debt has doubled
2) American dollar is in the dumpster
3) American good-paying jobs in manufacturing, IT, banking, etc. have been outsourced
4) American worker wages have not risen with great jumps in productivity
5) Costs of everyday things have escalated in price
6) Stockholders have become the only thing of value to corporations and they keep demanding more.
7) Wealth has been re-distributed to the top
8) Common people, desperate for money, have acted like the federal government and put it on the 'credit card'
9) The economy was allowed to overheat...driving up property values and costs and debt is drowning us
10) Bush's multiple wars is reducing the amount of money available to society
11) Bush's tax cuts to the wealthy further reduced revenue to spending

[Arctic Dave]

16. Agreed

I think shady bank practices fueled by personal greed would fit on your list nicely also.

[AzDar]

14. Well, 'Osama' DID bleed the Soviet Union dry in Afghanistan.....

:shrug:

[uppityperson]

15. Depends on whom is meant by "Sept. 11 plotters"

[Deny and Shred]

17. I'd believe 9/11 caused the massive deficits. It was the causus belli

for the massive military expenditures. On that grim day, one thought I had was terrorists are trying to kill the stock and financial markets. The housing troubles are perhaps a tangential result, but your straight line from cause and effect is using a stretch of logic. Wanting to bankrupt America through an endless War on Terra I buy. The housing market collapse, I gotta agree with Sinking and Arctic. Welcome Dave.

[NYC]

18. I don't believe this statement:

...But one big fact remains: None of this misery would have happened if Sept. 11 hadn't happened first...

[sinkingfeeling]

19. The attacks on 9/11 have absolutely nothing to do with the housing mess. The economy would have

taken a nose dive anyway because the entire country is drowning in debt.