In regards to blaming consumer (over-)spending for the current economic crisis:

[Proud Liberal Dem]

(Not true, of course and I'm personally getting sick of hearing it) WHO was it that told us post-9/11/01 to do our part to defeat the terrorists by going shopping? Who essentially told us to shop till THEY drop and that if we stopped shopping and buying things the terra-ists would win?

Thinking..............................................................................................................:shrug:

[MadHound]

1. It wasn't consumer over-spending that caused this crisis,

But it certainly hasn't helped. Too many idiotic people bought too many houses that were out of their price range, and bought them on no money down, ARM loans, talk about setting one's self up for failure.

And consumer overspending is going to exacerbate the problem, we're going to have a second wave of economic problems as people forfeit their maxxed out credit cards. Too many people thought that they could put their entire life on plastic, and as long as the minimum payment was low enough for them to pay every month, all was good. Now those chickens are coming home to roost.

Add in the fact that too many people used their houses like ATM's, taking out home equity loans for foolish purchases, and now that their house value has tanked, they're screwed.

This economic crisis was where greed ran into stupidity, on both the financial sector's and consumer's fault. There are lots of people to blame. What chaps my ass is all this irresponsibility could very well take down those of us who did the right thing, who managed our money responsibly. Now we're on the hook for hundreds of billions of dollars and I frankly don't know if we can hold up under the burden.

[WinkyDink]

2. The world crisis cannot be blamed solely on our housing loans. The U.S. exports next to

nothing.
As with warming, it is global.

[MadHound]

3. No, but a large part of it is due solely to our housing loans.

We essentially used the deflation of one bubble, the tech bubble, to inflate another, the housing bubble. Sadly, entirely too many people fell for it, getting houses that were way beyond their means, taking out loans they knew they couldn't handle, over development, house flipping, the entire spectrum of really bad borrower behavior.

If this hadn't occurred, we would be in a hell of a lot better shape, and this recession would be minor, not this looming extinction level event.

[The_Commonist]

4. And if we had any kind of effective regulation...

...that would not have happened.

[MadHound]

5. True that, however if a lot of these borrowers had even a modicum of common sense

And had done the research that they were supposed to, then we wouldn't be in the position that we're in now. As with most things, it takes two to tango.

[Clio the Leo]

6. I'm nominating you for the new NBC White House correspondent...

... because you know more than Chuck Todd does on the matter (not all that hard really.)