He PREDICTED the crisis you utter utter nincompoop. Way back in 2005 he knew what was going to happen and was sounding off about it on the business news channels trying to warn everyone.

So what you’re effectively saying is that the same guy who was warning us about this 5 years ago actually secretly wanted it to happen?

Your logic:

1. “Free markets caused the crash” >
2. Schiff supported Free Markets in 2005 >
3. Schiff was warning people about the forthcoming crash in 2005 >
4. Schiff secretly wanted the crash to happen but at the same time was neurotically trying to warn people about it.

Are you actually a retard?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I0QN-FYkpw

Give a constitutionalist a shot, what’s the worst that can happen? Get hit with a terrorist attacks? Banking Crisis? Worldwide warfare? Continual loss of liberty. Oh wait, nvm, you’ve already decided that’s what you wanted.

Keep burying your heads in the sand and imagine you’re free. Slaves

I’m just curious, does the same principle apply in Israel? Do you have to support the US unconditionally to be elected there, or can you criticize the actions of the US without being called some equivalent of “anti-Semitic”?

You Wrote:

“(Schiff) needs some establishment GOP types (…) they are going
“to need people like Schiff to propel them there.

That would be a sad day when establishment GOP types would manage to ride back to Washington on an honest man’s back

You are completely offbase in calling Mr. Schiff disingenuous and saying that he’s a revisionist of recent history. Clearly, you have not done your homework before commenting on him.

I suggest you search youtube for the following speech:

“peter schiff mortgage bankers 2006″

In this speech he explains in detail how and why there was a crisis coming. If you watch this speech, keep in mind that it’s in 2006.

Regardless, if you trust the very people who were saying that the fundamentals were sound to enact regulations to prevent future crises, then I guess there isn’t anything that’s going to change your opinion.

One thing on greed that u must understand is that the greediest people are also the most risk-averse because they FEAR losing money. The problem comes when you remove that fear of losing and that’s what government policies do with their guarantees. Also, cheap money, thru low interest rates, brings down the cost of borrowing and discourages saving and this also breeds speculation and risk-taking because since interest on savings is so low, more people take risks seeking higher returns that would not be sought if interest rates were higher on conservative investment options.

Anyway, good luck to everyone, I am not an American, but I find people like Mr. Schiff and Ron Paul so inspiring because of their knowledge and honesty among other things.

–Of course, the bad government forced those poor businesses in to risky decisions. Give me a break. Greed drove our recent financial meltdown, greed and lack of long term vision.–

The government owns or guarantees $6 trillion worth or mortgages, 50% of the US mortgage market, through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The government also actively pushed banks to make unwise loans in low income communities.

This is a nearly 10 year old article that predicts the housing crisis due to Bill Clinton’s push to expand the power of the CRA (Community Reinvestment Act):

http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_1_the_trillion_dollar.html

The Trillion-Dollar Bank Shakedown That Bodes Ill for Cities
Howard Husock

Winter 2000

The Clinton administration has turned the Community Reinvestment Act, a once-obscure and lightly enforced banking regulation law, into one of the most powerful mandates shaping American cities—and, as Senate Banking Committee chairman Phil Gramm memorably put it, a vast extortion scheme against the nation’s banks. Under its provisions, U.S. banks have committed nearly $1 trillion for inner-city and low-income mortgages and real estate development projects, most of it funneled through a nationwide network of left-wing community groups, intent, in some cases, on teaching their low-income clients that the financial system is their enemy and, implicitly, that government, rather than their own striving, is the key to their well-being.

The Clinton administration also pushed Fannie Mae to expand its low income lending:

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/30/business/fannie-mae-eases-credit-to-aid-mortgage-lending.html?pagewanted=1

Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending
By STEVEN A. HOLMES
Published: September 30, 1999

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29— In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets — including the New York metropolitan region — will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

Fannie Mae, the nation’s biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

–

Stop living in leftist fantasy land and looking at the facts. Democrat propagandists and lied and BSed through 4 decades of ruinous policies.

@geoff …it’s understandable to fall victim to these excuses being thrown around while the same politicians toss the financial sector under the bus to cover their a**es. Please read stephen’s comment carefully, as he’s spot on. Take the time to research moral hazard, and how government policies have a tendency to guarantee a return, no matter the risk. If I told you I’d cover your loses if you went ahead and loaned $100k of your money to a random individual… would you do it? There’s only upside. Without fear of failure, there is only unfettered greed. The government will strive to suppress the chances of failure, in a do-good attempt to push a positive social policy, never taking into consideration unintended consequences that will ultimately make things much worse for everyone else.

Blaming the financial crisis on greed is like blaming a plan crash on gravity. You have to be able to describe cause/effect. Greed doesn’t explain the confluence of errors. Why did the entire industry get so deep into trouble? The free market has natural checks on greed, its called risk. When someone makes bets that are risky, there is an opposing party making the bet that that risky bet will go south. If everyone was betting that these bets were actually safe, then why did that happen?

The answer is that cheap credit from the central bank and perverse regulations in the housing market made regulators and bureaucrats COMPLICIT in the housing bubble. Cheap credit lowers the cost of loans and makes risky bets appear more profitable. Housing regulations encouraging risky borrowing is the reason that the crisis was focused on housing. But it would have occurred anyway since the cheap credit would have found its way into the economy one way or another.

Know this. No amount of regulation would have prevented the financial crisis. Regulators knew what was going on, it wasn’t some grand secret. The problem was that they didn’t know that the boom was fake because they do not understand how monetary policy distorts prices in the market.

Of course, the bad government forced those poor businesses in to risky decisions. Give me a break. Greed drove our recent financial meltdown, greed and lack of long term vision.

I would never sit here and argue that “the government” isn’t without its fair share of the blame for our mess. But to absolve the private sector, the market, and whole industries of blame and not subject them to an equal standard is disingenuous and a revision of recent history. I think that’s why my fellow residents don’t take Schiff seriously. The cuffs don’t need to come of business. They need to get tighter