The Responsibility of the Federal Reserve for the Mortgage Meltdown

Are you confused about mortgages? Good. At least you know you are confused. The global economic system has been collapsed by people who were confused about mortgages and didn’t know it. Whose fault was it? It was the fault of the sub-prime home buyer. It was the fault of the sub-prime mortgage broker. It was the fault of lazy financial advisors who put their client’s money in asset backed paper that turned out to be worth whatever recycled paper goes for and no more. But the Federal Reserve Bank should carry most of the blame.

The Federal Reserve increased the amount a bank could loan relative to the amount the bank holds in deposits. It is hard to argue that the increase to a 30-1 ratio was simple idiocy. Jon Stewart repeatedly hammered this point home when demolishing Mad Money host Jim Cramer on March 12th. Why is Republican Congressman Ron Paul the only politician in Washington pointing at the Federal Reserve Bank? Why are heads not rolling and careers ending at Treasury?. And they should pay. Congress must rescind the Bank’s charter and replace it with a central bank controlled by the Treasury Department.

Mortgage brokers tried selling a subprime mortgage to any prospect that had a pulse. With interest rates at historic lows (until now, and God help us), mortgages were made to people that mortgage brokers knew could not afford the payments if interest rates were to return to their historic averages.

These shaky mortgages were then bundled and sold to financial firms as ‘asset backed paper,’ the now infamous ‘toxic assets’ we, the taxpayer, are buying from the banks. Question: What is another word for a toxic asset? Answer: A liability. Your tax money is being used to the American government. Read more on this in geld lenen binnen 1 dag in Dutch.

And lastly are the people who bought homes they couldn’t afford, and then started whining that they didn’t know they had an adjustable rate mortgage. I cannot conceive of people so clueless that they make the largest financial commitment of their lifetimes without reading the document they are signing – or at least paying a lawyer or advisor to do so. These people should never have been allowed to purchase a home, and they certainly shouldn’t be rescued from foreclosure.

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