Nice try - give me the details on how deregulation & Paulson caused this... The media loves to spout the same thing but never with back-up.
What IS known is that Barney Frank and others pushed Fannie & Freddie to continually increase the portion of their loans dedicated to the sub-prime market, which continued to increase the risk in the system (why do you think loan terms & down payments became so loose in the last few years?). Because the government was implicitly backing these subprime loans via Fannie & Freddie, the risk was assumed to be low because we, the taxpayer, through our government were providing the back-up. Then when the unsustainable real estate bubble popped, the defaults began to pile up and - voila! - a credit crisis and, as projected, we got stuck with the bill. This is all well-documented in the Wall Street Journal (but you won't find it in the New York Times for some odd reason...)
So, now walk me through how deregulation caused the crisis?
Also, what does the market like about Obama? Do you think his proposed unsustainable spending is helping? Universal healthcare proposals? Private-industry take-overs? How are these things market friendly?
