The Upsdie of the Downturn

[Joanne98]

Conservative pundits say we should feel the pain. Let the auto makers declare bankruptcy. If homeowners can't pay their mortgages, let the banks foreclose. Let the market decide. Let the weak die. The country has to be strong.

Emotionally callous, intellectual dishonest, the one modicum of truth in these statements is that there are stark realities to be confronted. We have been living beyond our means. We have buried ourselves in debt and false expectations. We are at the bottom of a sand pit. Unless we claw ourselves out, the sand will smother us.

We're told that the root cause of the crisis was the housing bubble. In the Clinton and George W. Bush's administrations there was a push to promote home ownership. For Clinton, this was the natural extension of the liberal idea that material advantages should be available to all levels of society, poor as well as rich. For Bush, putting more people into their own homes was good for business. Alan Greenspan accommodated by lowering interest rates, loosening regulations, and flooding the financial markets with cheap money. China facilitated the bubble by selling us affordable goods and propped up the system by investing in our debt.

Competition in the housing market pushed up prices which created equity, allowing people to buy what they couldn't really afford. The system worked well. We lived the way we believed we should. New cars, ever larger digital televisions, cool new cell phones... disposable income was fun.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Upsdie-of-the-Downturn-by-David-Latt-090221-877.html

[Berry Cool]

1. I thought this was a typo on the part of the OP

but no, the original author of the piece called it "The Upsdie of..." :rofl: