Akkam’s Razor

I was just forwarded the wingnut porno flick blaming brown people for our long, national, economic nightmare.   The central point of the video is that DC liberals forced minorities to buy mortgages they couldn’t afford, and it wrecked our economy.  Is it true?

No.

Low interest rates, plus speculation, plus derivatives, plus a lack of regulation and the manipulation of so called “free markets”, along with a staggering lack of trust caused the problem.  Now that it’s all going to shit, no one wants to get stuck with the check, without a seat when the music stops, or holding the hot potato.  They are counting on you being stupid enough to believe what they’re selling.

• TV Networks NBC, CBS and ABC Discover Life Without ITunes
  (tags: itunes streaming websites tv2.0)
• New Economist: Top 25 econoblogs on del.icio.us
  (tags: econblogs list)
• Enron’s Second Coming? - New York Times
  If Mozilo [Countrywide's CEO] says “no one saw [the housing subprime crisis] coming”, than why has he been unloading his options this past year?
  (tags: Mozilo countrywide options subprime housingbubble mortgage finance economics)
• Call it the case of the annoyingly overused newspaper lede
  Lazy journalists and the “call it *” meme…
  (tags: newspapers humor)

A quote is absolutely driving me nuts is that of Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo stating that no one saw the current financial turmoil coming:

But as I do reflect on it, and I do a lot, nobody saw this coming. 

The Big Picture's Barry Ritholtz posts an insider's email, clearly detailing that those in the know CLEARLY knew what was going on.  And any reasonable person knows that it couldn't go on forever.  Industry had to know the good times wouldn't last, but greed gave them tunnel vision and caused them to ignore financial certainties.