The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission is about to release its almost 600 page report. The 6 Dem appointees claim that the finacial crisis was "an avoidable disaster." They blame it on failure by the government to regulate, corporate mismanagement ( Lehman , AIG , Citigroup etc. ) and heedless risk taking by Wall Street. 3 of the 4 Republican appointees are issuing a dissent blaming it on a narrower set of causes and 1 Republican is blaming it all on housing policy and excessive borrowing by homeowners.
All of the members of this Commission should be ashamed of themselves. They spent over a year, listened to about 700 witnesses , spent who knows how much money and produced a document that doesn't tell us a thing we didn't already know.
Greenspan is blamed for negligence and for cheerleading excessive deregulation.
Who didn't know that ?
The SEC is blamed for total failure of oversight.
Who needs to be told that ?
The Clinton Administration ( including Geithner, Summers and Rubin ) is blamed for shielding derivatives from proper regulation.
Who thinks THAT is a news flash ?
The really fun parts are who doesn't get blamed: Fannie, Freddie, low interest rates and HOMEOWNERS ! While it is outrageous for a solo Republican appointee to primarily blame borrowers in his dissent , it is equally outrageous to let them off the hook entirely as the majority does. How about a national debt to GDP ratio that went from 20% in 2002 to 30% in 2007 ? How about the corruption of lending standards pioneered by Frank Raines at Fannie cheered on by Maxine Waters and Barney Fwank ? What about the role of the rating agencies ? While Bush and Clinton come in for their share of blame ( which is fine afaic ) what about the dummies and ninnies in Congress ? Not a word about the "Friends of Angelo" ???
The answer as to what happened is so pathetically obvious. It's like : "who committed the Murder On The Orient Express ? THEY ALL DID ! "
Clearly, this piece of partisan junk is nothing more than an apologia for Dodd -Frank. Which is fine up to a point. As I, Melonie and one or two others have previously pointed out, the regulations therein do not do enough to prevent a repeat.
All in all , a pathetic, piss poor effort that should be publicly burned. Again, the poor trees that have to be sacrificed just to print this garbage ! Oh the Arbority !



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