Just about everyone has made reference as of late to the financial crisis, so I'm going to put in my two cents.
Initially, as with everything, people wanted to blame Bush and lenient regulations that were promoted by his administration and party. Then people started to get it right and blamed the money managers and CEOs of AIG, Lehman's, Freddie and Fannie for overextending themselves into risk averse loan situations without consideration of the ramifications. Then people went back to blaming Washington, which is a generic cop out strategy, to not put the blame exactly where it lies. Many factors were involved. Yes, it involves many greedy bankers, yes it involves the
FED, and yes, it could have been prevented. However, I am horrified by the solution.
The US first bails out Freddie and Fannie, then it lets Lehman Brother's go bankrupt. The next day they bail out AIG, and now they have devised a plan to loan 700 billion dollars to ad liquidity and save the entire financial industry in America and the world. What that amounts to is a free ride for these companies. It's like saying, "Well I know you were irresponsible for more than a decade and a half, causing millions of people to lose their money, but we'll bail you out anyway and you can live happily off your 7-8 figure pension or severance." But, this bail out is not just helping American companies. Paulson has included
foreign companies who have a lot at stake here as well, because as he correctly claims "It is a
global problem." However, that being said, it should be a global solution, not the American taxpayers bailing all these companies out. We are marching towards socialism. We will soon have a completely state run financial system. And, the best part about it is no one consulted the American people. I suppose they didn't have to, but it sure ads insult to injury.
Who really should get the help from this crisis are all the people who put money into this failed system, not the system. The lenders screwed up royally and can't pay back their debts, so why should we the people who lost our money to them, bail them out? I know some will argue, "desperate times call for desperate measures," but I would have stopped at Freddie and Fannie.
Oh, and on another note, the former
CEO of Fannie works for Obama, gave a load of money and picked his VP.
I just read an article on bloomberg.com that explains how the collapse happened and who was really responsible. It might shock you, but it was the senate democrats in 2005. The legislation that would have prevented Freddie and Fannie from taking on so much risk was caught in partisan wrangling and was never allowed to go before the whole body of the senate to be voted on. 
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