What can we blame?

Sorry comment #19 but all of us did not do this. This mess was created by greedy banks and irresponsible borrowers. Some of us pay our actually find it important, ethical and responsible to pay back what we borrow or not borrow what we cannot afford to pay back.

19 is a clown @ 7:50 PM PST, Feb 1, 2008

If the government would let the housing market run its course, we would not be in this mess. Housing prices are being propped up by the government which is blowing more hot air into the bubble. Where were they when prices were out of control? Now that the market wants to correct itself, they wish to interfere. If they would butt out, prices on homes would fall to a more natural level, people would BUY homes again and the economy would improve.

Blame goes to - government bailout @ 7:42 PM PST, Feb 1, 2008

What a joke of a question. This is ALL the result of IRRESPONSIBLE borrowers. People who bought a house they could not afford. That created this bubble. That type of buying put too much pressure on home prices to increase resulting in the current HYPER INFLATION of LA home prices. I do not feel one bit sorry for anyone who is being foreclosed on. Thanks, irresponsible people. You have made living in LA substantially more difficult for everyone else, have increased home prices well above their true price, have increase rent price and have created this slowdown in the economy.

Are you kidding? @ 7:39 PM PST, Feb 1, 2008

Dan asked what the "Wall Street MBAs" were thinking. They were thinking about big their bonus's would be for all the loans and securities they were moving. . Everyone involved got a lot of money out of this, at every stage, by securitizing the risks. The coporations took the money for taking the risks, that’s how it works. Now these costs are being socialized because the pols can't have their corporate backers actually held to free market standards.

zak822 @ 2:50 PM PST, Feb 1, 2008

Our problem has been the same since 1930. FDR and the Democrats gamed the economy for political ends to supposedly get us out of the Depression (never mind that it lasted 4 years longer than it would have.) Capitalism worked quite nicely from the colonial period all the way to FDR--and then the liberals got ahold of the US government and we've been headed toward this reckoning ever since. There IS no way out, except to let the system collapse, and then restart with gold standard currency.

Sheryl @ 10:04 AM PST, Feb 1, 2008

As with any Ponzi scheme, the economy dove when the last guy bought the last house and couldn't find the next sucker to sell it to two weeks later for that "guaranteed" 50% gain. He couldn't make the mortgage payment because he couldn't afford to in the first place. So he walked away from it. The first domino fell in the wilderness. But soon the noise of falling dominoes became deafening. I'll take personal responsibility for any decision of mine, but the enabler in this mess is Moody's and S&P. AAA rating on those CDO's? C'mon.

Doug @ 8:14 AM PST, Feb 1, 2008

No Amount of tax cutting well make US whole, there are very few possible choices to fix it. This 'stimulus' package will have very little impact, this is not the same situation we had after 9/11, and the same solution won't help. For those who think we need a tax cut, explain how the existing tax cuts are helping any more, since they are still in effect, and we are in a recession.

David @ 7:31 AM PST, Feb 1, 2008

The things that got us into this fix are: The housing bubble, created by people buying houses for absurd amounts of money and companies making loans for absurd amounts of money on that property, the reduction in wage growth, because we are now competing with the 3rd world for jobs. If we hadn't had the housing bubble, we would have been where we are today 7 years ago.

David @ 7:31 AM PST, Feb 1, 2008

Ever wonder why the socialist party went extinct during the Great Depression? FDR co-opted their platform. Obviously capitalism is to blame. The crash is inevitable. When? Just as soon as all the new money being created ends up in the hands of the top 1%.

ivan hall @ 10:46 PM PST, Jan 31, 2008

Dot com crash sent investors looking for new pastures. Bush tax cut put substantially more money in the hands of the wealthy, who in turn seek out highest rates of return. Fed dropped interest rates way low after 9/11 flooding the wealthy with even more money. All this money at the top wants only one thing, more money. The bottom line, the U.S. no longer invests in things of value, rather, whatever gives the highest rate of return. That's why we have no manufacturing left. Time to dust off your "Das Kapital". As for current conditions, housing bust just another domino, symptomatic of wall street greed based society.

ivan hall @ 10:36 PM PST, Jan 31, 2008

Next