Snopes.com has the low down on the credit crisis, at least from the sub-prime mortgage perspective. Understanding that people who find themselves in messes like to fully understand how they got in the mess they are in, snopes verified that two articles recreated and circulated by email are true.
One of the articles, written by Steven A. Holmes and published in the "New York Times" in 1999, was titled: "Fannie Mae Eases Credit to Aid Mortgage Lending," the other, also a "New York Times" article, written by Stephen Labaton was published in September, 2003, and titled: "New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae ."
Both are eye opening, if you really want to know how we got here today, with $700 billion dollars, by any name, still being a bail-out. I'd recommend the snopes link, it is a very easily understood summary.
Representative Roy Blunt insists it is not a bailout. He said American taxpayers are "investing in their future."
In other news, the City of Springfield is still working, through its new City Manager, to find a feasible solution to our local police and fire fighter pension plan crisis. The sentiment among some of the local press seems to be that citizens should not finger point or try to place blame regarding how the pension plan ended up underfunded by $140 million dollars, or only funded by 50 percent. With blindfolded determination, some believe understanding the past will only start a "potentially paralyzing round of finger pointing," leaving one to believe if residents understand how our pension plan got into such a mess it will only serve to keep us from looking forward to a solution. Perhaps they are waiting for the Associated Press to issue a report for them (or another local paper).
"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." - George Santayana
"We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future." - George Bernard Shaw
"History is a race between education and catastrophe." - H. G. Wells
"History is more or less bunk." - Henry Ford
"History is merely a list of surprises. It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again." - Kurt Vonnegut
"History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again." - Maya Angelou
"Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation." - Robert F. Kennedy
Have a pleasant weekend.
