A fine reminder...

I found this blog post reading pajamasmedia.com and wanted to share. I think the story of this year is how big media and elected leaders in Congress got away blatantly blaming the mortgage fiasco, asset bubble pop, and dangerous drop in the economy on the current administration and anyone else that is perhaps a registered republican.

This article by Roger Kimball really gives it to big media (NY Times) and congressional democrats (mainly Chris Dodd and Barney Frank) and rightly so. It is a decent sized read so if you don't have time now, come back in a day or two and read all of it.

I'm not normally into dragging national issues to this blog, and I do not proclaim to be any sort of expert on big time political issues. It basically comes down to this... I've been reading about the 'blame' game for a long time. Real estate bubble bloggers, and more recently the big media types, have been blaming the real estate industry and/or registered republicans for all this mess for longer than this mess has been apparent and in our face nationally.

I consider myself to have an open mind so I have read many media reports, blogs, and anything else that I put in front of my eyes on all sides of the issue. I'll admit that I never heard of the Community Reinvestment Act in detail before this year, but for all the reports and words I have read Mr. Kimball's article sums it up the way that I have come to see the entire issue.

Please understand, I'm not playing to my own sensitivities as a real estate professional or even as a registered republican. While I love the industry I'm in, I can leave anytime I want... and I also do not consider myself a 'good' republican (I voted for some D's last month). Anyone is free to bash Realtors and/or republicans all darn day if they'd like, it bothers me not.

I'm not writing this to put the blame on anyone, I've only been searching for the possible causes and eventual affects. The thing that kept coming back to me was this quote I read back in September taken from comments from some publication (I often copy and save things just to have around... I don't remember where I got this though).

All pressure to reduce vetting of loan qualification has the cumulative effect of weakening the probability for loan repayment.

It is all right there. It was only a matter of time, and that time has passed.

Again, to me, the story of the year is how big media propagated the myth that these economic issues we face today were solely the fault of some republicans. There's plenty of blame to go around and I frankly don't care... I'm more interested in who has the solutions that will work. I seriously doubt the media or the elected politicians can be counted on for those.