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If you had to blame the recession on one person, who would it be?

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My pick would be the Massachusetts Democrat Congressman Barney Frank.

Here he is in 2005 claiming that fears of a housing bubble are unfounded.

Here’s the timeline showing who wanted to regulate Fannie and Freddie, and who blocked regulation.

Here’s video from a hearing showing Democrats opposing regulations:

That’s right – Republicans wanted to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and Democrats said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are “doing a tremendous job”.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had paid the Democrats off handsomely during multiple election cycles, but I’m sure that the Democrats’ opposition to regulations had nothing to do with those political contributions.

I found these videos at Ace of Spades, thanks to ECM.

6 thoughts on “If you had to blame the recession on one person, who would it be?”

  1. Pingback: Jobs!!! Part 3 « Eternity Matters

  2. My vote for leading recession causer, the POTUS who lead us right into the housing bubble and financial crisis and got us where were are today: George W. Bush.

    You can thank the Dems for regulations. Republicans have been against all the reforms articulated by Frank and company.

    Nice try.

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    1. Except that the videos falsified all of that, and they’re, you know…. VIDEOS.

      Oh and the New York Times says Bush tried to regulate Fannie and Freddie in 2003, and was blocked by…. BARNEY FRANK!

      The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

      …

      ”These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

      So, I have to disagree. If you want to blame Bush for spending too much, we’re going to agree on that. And signing TARP? Agree again.

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    2. You have that exactly opposite: Bush raised the alarm and guys like Frank said “hey, there’s no crisis here!”, etc.

      The fact that the videos PROVE this and you still go on LYING about it is, frankly, stunning.

      In fact, I’m going to save this post of yours and, every time you post something that’s even half-true in the future, I’ll be sure to link back to this, as it’s proof that you will lie even when the truth is right there for anyone to see.

      So, in summation, you are a liar and no one should take you seriously ever again.

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  4. Here’s an article in Forbes (for whom I have worked on and off for the last 12 years) about early predictors of a housing bubble (as early as 2001) and those who denied it.

    http://www.forbes.com/2008/12/31/housing-bubble-crash-oped-cx_bb_0102bartlett.html

    The author, Bruce Bartlett, states, “The current economic crisis is raising many legitimate questions about the failure of economists and financial analysts to foresee the housing bubble and warn of its collapse.

    There were, in fact, many warnings dating back more than seven years.”

    I know this for a fact because I worked at Forbes while they were printing stories about it and the other business news media wasn’t.

    If you want to blame someone, I’d single out Alan Greenspan first. I’d also point a very large finger at Angelo Mozilo and Countrywide, and companies like AIG and some of the other large players who packaged all those subprime mortgages into bonds.

    But if “the buck stops here” means anything, then you have to pin responsibility on the POTUS at the time and also the REPUBLICAN majority in congress at the time these things were coming to the fore. That happened in the Bush years. To single out Barney Frank is a bit of desperate finger pointing, if you ask me. But I’m used to it.

    Now go on and keep squabbling about it. But Frank and Co. did introduce many regulations recently as part of Financial Reform, and the democrats were the ones IN FAVOR of it. The republicans were against.

    The bill got watered down. No big surprise there. And there are still many republicans arguing against the need for financial and corporate reform. Well, that was last month. Maybe they’ve flip flopped on the issue, but what else is new?

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