GREENSPAN WILL GO DOWN AS ONE OF THE GREATS............HE SAID THIS WOULD HAPPEN............

For the subprime mess, the Clinton and the Democrats are to blame: 1. In 1998, Clinton forced Fanny and Freddie to put out subprime loans in mass to boost the econmy. 2. In 2001 and again in 2004, Bush administration proposed bills to stop the out of control subprime practices, but both were stopped by the Democrats in the Congress. 3. The liberal Democrats lead by Pelosi and Frank were laughing crazy when they past the $700+ Billion rescue bill. (Meaning they stick it to the Republicans again.)

Warren Buffett is known as "The Oracle [of Omaha]".

Alan Greenspan is known as "The Maestro".

Greenspan will take the majority of the blame and rightfully so once the long view of history reviews this fiasco. He kept interest rates to low to long after 9/11, in part, to help re-elect Bush four years ago. He destroyed the US currency and like Cheney who famously said to Tres. Sec. Snow "deficits don't matter" supported Bush's tax breaks without any corresponding reduction in government spending. Greenspan and Bush should have to sit under the national debt clock along with the ghost of Reagan for eternity. Paul Volker was the last real man at the FOMC.

Fanny and Freddie made me alot of money..........but i knew when to pull out, well not really i just wanted a bmw. it was an accident that i sold when i did. good luck ya'll.

bernanke is mainly to blame when he kept raising the rates over and over in the past. Causing the mortgage rates to go out of sight. What an idiot

He started the realestate bubble burst.

now they corps are stealing all the 700 billion and taking vacations

clear up everybodys bad credit and lets start all over again.

can i just get one million of that 700 billion please?

If you really go back to when deregulation and this mess got its first push, look at the Republican God, Ronald Reagan.

As a Democrat it is difficult for me to say such, but yes; pushing Fannie and Freddie to loan to any- and everyone was a mistake.  But let's not be foolish and assume that this was where the problem began and ended.

Wall Street created paper assets using bundled mortgage loans as collateral.  They then insured the risk with unregulated derivatives.  

Freddie and Fannie (who, by the way, pumped millions into the campaigns of BOTH parties) were clearly a starting point for this mess, but Wall Street helped propel the mess with risk clearly outside the scope of reason, fueled by lack of regulation and greed.

In this particular case, it was Clinton who pushed de-regulation on sub-prime, then strongarmed Fanny and Freddie. NYT reported these in 1998 and 1999. The originator of this sub-prime was Barney Frank. (No wonder him and Pelosi were so joyful after the $800+ rescue was passed.

Right on Catfish John

 All the chicanery, trickery and deceipt by all involved in Wall Street and Washington, was supported by Alan Greenspan's free money policy. When spenders are subsidized and savers are penalized you get the mess that exists today. An example is leveraged buyouts which create nothing for the real economy, but are financed by cheap money. Money is wasted, never to be recovered from poor investments and schemes that only Wall Street hucksters could ever dream up.

 Because Wall Street has lost all it's credibility, all the money and credit that Bernanke and Paulson throw at the "problem" will do nothing. The Fed's and taxpayer's money are needed to rebuild American industry and families from the ground up.  The money lost in Wall Street is gone forever. New money should build new futures.

 This "crisis" will be solved by time, by  leaders showing leadership-instead of yelling "fire in a crowded theatre" and by stopping the slide in interests rates. It's credibility that is in scarce supply, not the cost of money.

 Americans need to stop buying at Chinese Wallmart and start supporting their own country again.

 And Greenspan should apologize for forgetting basic economic theory. It's the real- inflation adjusted interest rate that matters in the long run, not the nominal rate. The ride is over and he has destroyed the purchasing power and confidence in the American dollar.  I suggest the clamoring to purchase U.S. treasuries and currency is only due to a lack of other safe options. People are running to U.S. government debt out of desperation to preserve their scarce and rapidly disappearing capital.

Kevin