Friday, February 15, 2008

Coming Home to Roost

What does the suspension of the Michigan Higher Education Student Loan program have to do with the Bush Administration? Everything, as it turns out.

Bush and his band of Economic Fundamentalists believe that markets are perfect. They are all knowing and all seeing. The correllary to this is that market regulations of any kind are bad.

This laissez-fair attitude allowed the banks and Wall Street firms to run amok for seven years, inventing ever more opportunities for them to make money and for their customer to take risks they never knew they were taking.

After the sub-prime mortgage debacle, the customers are waking up - and they are scared. Scared customers don't lend money (by buying bonds) and the whole credit market has screeched to a halt. No one knows where this is going to go, an no one knows what all the failure modes are.

This did not happen in a vacuum. It happened because the Bush Administration allowed it to happen

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