tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6666208467022745303.post8623599334374708029..comments2024-03-13T02:17:39.644-07:00Comments on Restating the Obvious: Book Review 318: All the Devils Are HereHarry Eagarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04196202758858876402noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6666208467022745303.post-58966489424629258402014-04-13T12:07:43.461-07:002014-04-13T12:07:43.461-07:00As McLean and Nocera document nicely, 1) there was...As McLean and Nocera document nicely, 1) there wasn't any government pressure; 2) the banks did not require any pressure to leverage up anyway.<br /><br />The theme of 'Devils' is that the investors could not get enough crap loans, rather than being forced to accept them. Nocera and McLean are aware of the rightwing explanation, and in their final chapter explicitly say it is 'upside-down,' (like a mortgage).<br /><br />As long as causes precede effects, Nocera and McLean must be right -- or at least the rightwing version cannot be correct. (Nothing unusual, the rightwingers are desperately rewriting the history of the Hoover Depression to cover the failure of their ideology, too.)Harry Eagarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04196202758858876402noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6666208467022745303.post-37051881307242683702014-04-11T23:24:13.377-07:002014-04-11T23:24:13.377-07:00According to you, This is important because the ri...According to you, <i>This is important because the rightwingers, desperate to excuse the failure of Reaganomics, have adopted the CRA as THE cause of the crash. </i><br /><br />In order to avoid an attack of the strawmen, would you please provide a link to a rightwinger who believes such a thing?<br /><br />Because, once you stop amassing squadrons of them, reality just might intrude. According to the NYT review of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/13/books/review/fragile-by-design-by-charles-w-calomiris-and-stephen-h-haber.html?emc=edit_bk_20140411&nl=books&nlid=51807315" rel="nofollow">Fragile by Design</a><br /><br /><i>[The authors] devote two chapters to the origin of the 2008 crisis in the United States. <b>In essence, they say, banks were encouraged to engage in subprime lending by government pressure</b>. And to make up for any erosion in profits this entailed, regulators turned lenient on capital requirements, allowing banks to rely much more heavily on borrowing. This was certainly part of the story. </i><br /><br />Goal post shifting starting in 3, 2, 1 ...Hey Skipperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10798930502187234974noreply@blogger.com