Poor People To Blame for Economic Crisis

Larry Kudlow on Morning Joe

Now I have heard it all. It is the fault of poor people that we are in an economic crisis. Kudlow blames low income people that wanted to own a home. It is also the fault of the Community Reinvestment Act which made it possible for low income people to receive loans. This is just plain ridiculous. You cannot blame the economic crisis on poor people. I wasn’t aware that poor people with limited resources had the power to bankrupt Wall Street banks. Kudlow fails to acknowledge that there were larger factors at play. What about banks making loans with money that they didn’t have? What about greedy executives? What about speculators in the real estate market buying 2nd and 3rd homes? What about poor risk management? What about unsuitable mortgage products?

Happy Thanksgiving!

In honor of Thanksgiving I will list the 5 biggest turkeys of the year: 

1. Predatory Lenders – Lending companies and individuals that gave high fee, high interest loans to borrowers that they knew could not afford the loans. Many of these lenders have gone out of business. (Ameriquest, New Century Financial)

2. Greedy Executives – As mentioned in a previous post, executives were excessively compensated for their inability to manage risk.

3. Credit Card Companies - How are credit card companies helping during these difficult economic times? By burying the already leveraged consumer with even more debt. They are raising rates on existing customers.

4. Regulatory and ratings agencies – Organizations like the SEC, Office of Thrift Supervision that inadequately monitored the systemic risk in the financial markets. Ratings agencies like Moody’s, Standard and Poor’s that fraudulently gave high ratings to low grade debt.

5. Minnesota Timberwolves – This isn’t finance related but how could you trade Kevin Garnett?