both parties are to blame

Yet more evidence that both major parties are the same and both are to blame for everything that's a major screwup in the last century is this article from the New York Times from 1999, which explains the origins of the subprime crisis:

Fannie Mae Eases Credit to Aid Mortgage Lending

The key point here are that it was under pressure from the Clinton administration that this took place, which flies in the face of the typical knee-jerk Democrat response that everything in the last 8 years in Bush's fault. Freddie Mac was created during FDR's presidency with a strongly Democratic congress. Fannie Mae was created under Nixon with a Democratic congress. The takeover of them recently as well as the bailouts of various banks and investment firms were supported by both parties. Both Presidential candidates support the bailout. The Bush administration supports the bailout. The Democratic congress supports the bailout.

Both parties are to blame and it's the unholy alliance of government and private corporations (or pseudo-private corporations) that is the cause of the problem and their solution is a stronger unholy alliance between government and selected giant corporations. How fair is that to companies that play by the rules and don't risk the loss of their customers' assets and homes in the relentless pursuit of profits? Companies that make stupid, selfish decisions should go bankrupt, not be propped up. Then they get bought up by smarter companies and life goes on. The scare tactics of saying there will be a global economic meltdown will only lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy as the media parrots this in every article about the bailout as if it's fact. If everyone panics, we WILL have a global economic meltdown.

A very telling event during the debate in the House this past week was the shouting out of how far the Dow was dropping as dissenters were airing their opinions on the House floor. Further proof that the bailout is about Wall Street and juicing up the stock market and not about preventing an imagined global economic meltdown.

The bailout will pass, it will cost far more than projected, it will never pay for itself, and we'll need another unholy alliance in the next decade to fix the mess it created. Lather, rinse, repeat. Yet another reason to completely reject both parties (who have melded into one) and vote third party in this and future elections.