Jacob Weisberg, Lame Journalist
Posted by Karen DeCoster [at lew rockwell's blog] at October 29, 2008 04:16 AM
This article in Slate is amateurish, and it reminds me of why Slate is becoming less interesting over time. I'll start off by quoting his opener:
A source of mild entertainment amid the financial carnage has been watching libertarians scurrying to explain how the global financial crisis is the result of too much government intervention rather than too little. One line of argument casts as villain the Community Reinvestment Act, which prevents banks from "redlining" minority neighborhoods as not creditworthy. Another theory blames Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for causing the trouble by subsidizing and securitizing mortgages with an implicit government guarantee. An alternative thesis is that past bailouts encouraged investors to behave recklessly in anticipation of a taxpayer rescue.
And? Does he really believe these things are not a cause of the "financial carnage?" He draws a blank on Freddie and Fannie, in spite of the fact that they both had to be taken over by the government or face shutdown. A little bit later, he says, "Had the advocates of prudent regulation been more effective, there's an excellent chance that the subprime debacle would not have turned into a runaway financial inferno." Knowing the very definition of "subprime," how does he think these billions in loans ended up with people who were not financially able to make the payments? Perhaps that is a worthy point for investigation? Is it a creation of our imaginations that America is teeming with foreclosures? And this might possibly be because borrowers are not making their mortgage payments? Weisberg ignores the trail of bread crumbs because he thinks he smells libertarian blood. More... LewRockwell.com/blog
-flynn
