Can You Watch This And Still Put The Blame On Poor Americans For This Credit Crisis?

Is this clip plain enough that even conservative right wingers can understand who is at fault for the credit crisis?


http://www.vimeo.com/3261363





Watch it and tell us (honestly, if that is an option) if what happened has become clearer to you after viewing this.|||An excellent reason why investment banking and consumer banking should be totally and forever separate.





Unless you did your homework when you bought your house during this period of time, you were most likely a victim of a shady deal. Just like the used car dealer who guarantees that the high-mileage clunker he just painted out back was previously owned by a little old lady who only drove it to church on Sundays. It didn't help that people were told that rising home prices were a sure guarantee that they could sell, and buy another palace in the same manner.





It also doesn't help that in communities like mine, the only homes that were built during the last 25 years were all luxury models, aimed at the upper middle class, and not the first-time home-buyer. But, first-time home-buyers were shown these extravagant homes, and were none the wiser.





I could feel the pressure when I was shopping for a home in 2002. After being shown 85 totally unsuitable houses, I finally did my own searching and found this one I now own: a 40 year old converted modular home on a half-acre.





First-time, or even second-time, home buyers should be required to attend several hours of homeowner counseling, but I don't see this happening soon because of the potential commission losses to those who benefit at the first step in the sales process: the real estate salesperson.|||"This mess was caused by corrupted mortgage lenders and greedy investment houses and a federal government that did not aggressively police financial corruption. Both political parties are to blame." - Bill O'Reilly





Poor Americans didn't have anyone twisting their arms when they took out mortgages that couldn't be paid for.|||Common sense needs to become a factor at some point. If you know you cannot afford a mortgage, don't get it. And yes, the lendors did take advantage of people by approving the loans, but it takes two which are the borrower and the lender. And please refer to a few years ago when McCain did nail this and said this was happening, and he was pushed aside and ignored.|||It sounds like a defense lawyer crying out


for those unqualified home buyers who cheated their income during their mortgage application,


for those who enjoyed their new bathroom , new kitchen, new swimming pool,new bikes, new boats ... with their imaginary home equity loans, ....|||This is part of the equation - perhaps the biggest part - but the problem extends beyond lending and borrowing. Business has been caught up in an unrealistic world of increasing profits for some time now, and it has helped to create this mess. I understand that every company is going to seek the maximum profit that it can get, but it can have negative effects in the long run. Think about the number of jobs that have been shipped overseas in favour of cheaper labour. Good paying jobs have left North America, which has cut the resources of the middle class. If the "working man" has less money to spend, then the economy will slow down. People have to work longer hours for a lower pay, and the cost of living only continues to rise. Shareholders and company executives made a lot of money for a few years by gutting the middle class, but it has now come back to haunt everyone.


Protectionism will probably help keep some jobs at home, but it will create new issues to deal with as well. All I can say is that the insanity that caused this problem is still running as strong as ever. Instead of restoring the middle class, we're taking their tax dollars and pumping it back into the companies who have gone bankrupt and created this mess.


We need a strong corporate base AND a strong middle class if we're going to get back to any form of prosperity. How long is it going to take to get them back?