The first thing that popped into my head after reading this was an image of us private individuals as the sturdy draft horse pulling the plow under the wise direction of an experienced plowman, the career professional government bureaucrat. The next thing that popped into my head was the thought of the sturdy draft horse character in Animal Farm who was guided by the pigs. Old Boxer didn't do so hot.Originally Posted by motorfirebox
When stripped to its essentials, the recent big economic crash was caused by a bunch of people who couldn't pay their mortgages. These were people who under normal circumstance would not have received mortgages because they were bad risks. Lenders established the criteria that marked them as bad risks because lenders don't like to lose money on loans and they had learned that people fitting those criteria were much less likely to pay back the loan. So why did the lenders lend money to people they knew were much less likely to pay it back? They lent it because is was government policy to strong arm them into making the loans. The gov did that in the pursuit of the political goal of expanding home ownership, and the wise gov figured the way to do that was to make sure more people were able to get home loans, and the way to do that was to force lenders to lower lending standards.
So that is it. Regardless of all the shenanigans that went on with lack of oversight, impunity, sharp practice etc., there would have been no crisis if all those uncreditworthy borrowers had repaid their loans as reliably as the credit worthy borrowers had been doing for years and years. But they didn't because home ownership doesn't confer financial responsibility upon a person, a person who is financially responsible is able to own a home. Those gov types couldn't figure that out.
George Orwell was a very bright guy.
Bookmarks