George Bush: We Want Everybody in America to Own Their Own Home. That's What We Want.

Again, the tax code has an undeniable regulatory effect. All institutional transaction take this into account. In turn, government intervention is interfering with a vital component of free markets losses the markets way of saying, Stop doing that! When losses are removed, unintended consequences are inevitable. The question is how to dissuade future bad behavior: letting the market punish bad behavior or having the taxpayer eat the losses resulting from bad behavior.

The hell free markets failed, what do you call the UNREGULATED credit default swap market? The market exploded in 7 short years to 55 trillion dollars, and now they are the primary reason of the credit crisis, not the housing bubble. "Counter party risk" learn what that means, it means anyone owning money for those CDS is insolvent and cannot lend anything. It only it was regulated to restrict it's explosive growth the banks would have copped better with the new products.

I'll see ya in hell bushy.

Free markets did not fail, government intervention did. The regulatory effect of taxes is overlooked. One mans incentive is another mans loophole et vise versa. Moreover, profligate credit, deficits, Keynesian monetary expansion and the 1992 Community Redevelopment Act mandating loans to borrowers of dubious financial merit were all actions of government not of capitalism. Markets are punishing exactly the kind of behavior one expects them to punish yes Mr. Friedman, you did warn us.

Great clip, thanks for posting!

People ought to recognize that the financial hole is obviously much bigger than Fanny&Freddie, it includes a gigantic Administration lurking completely out of control in and out the US, that it has been a bipartisan effort to sqeeze every $ from the system, the -raison de'etre- for both major parties acting de facto like trade unions, and that the mother of all lending is called M2! No inflationary growth of M2, no F&F do-gooders, no bailout-R**e of taxpayers.

Freddie and Fannie were originally purely governmental entities.

It was guess who - privatization loving Republicans - who felt they would function better as quasi-private entities with a corporate board and less government oversight.

Nobody at Freddie or Fannie told Countrywide or the other creeps to issue mortgages to people they knew couldn't repay them back.Freddie and Fannie collapsed because of the Ponzi get-rich games private mortgage lenders were engaging in.

Your whole argument is built with chewing gum and baling wire. The truth is that an ethic of greed, coupled with increasingly arcane financial instruments against a backdrop of trickle-down, deregulation got the big boys in trouble. That the Dems didn't stick their thumb in the right hole in the dike wasn't the problem. The problem is Republican values of greed, deregulation, trickle-down and borrow-and-spend. Any fool can see it.

~Now, where are the Republican fingerprints on Fannie and Freddie?~

What, aside from your Stallion GWB in this video?

Try here Socrates, these prints are fresh and messy:
w3 nytimes com/2008/09/22/us/politics/22mccain.html?_r=3&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=politics&pagewanted=print&adxnnlx=1222107834-7VPdRGOYks+tf4/MeWfqaQ&oref=slogin

Here it is, moron. Rep. Frank is attempting to shield himself from criticism by charging racism:

w3 breitbart com / article php?id=D93LAKT01&show_article=1

"Rep. Barney Frank said Monday that Republican criticism of Democrats over the nation's housing crisis is a veiled attack on the poor that's racially motivated."

Now, where are the Republican fingerprints on Fannie and Freddie?

BTW, where are the Republican fingerprints on Fannie and Freddie?