Now Chaz, you REALLY didn’t think I’d leave that alone, did you?

 Chaz Proulx and I were supposed to have a "blogger debate" a while ago as he was a Hillary supporter and I was defending enlarging the free market for healthcare and diminishment of the role of Government (or, at least getting it out of the way).   Now, he and I have talked on the phone several times and exchanged a number of emails – he seems to be a nice fellow but just a tad misguided.  Over at NHInsider:

Just When He Needed a Life Preserver, A Sinking McCain Throws Himself an Anvil

Hmm, from where I sit, it seems that the polls (which NOW should start to have some semblance of reality as we get closer to the election) are showing a neck and neck race.  And heck, Obama is still flummoxed over Gov. Palin’s tap to be McCain’s running mate.  Biden, on the other hand, seems more like the lump of iron for the Obama campaign that Chaz writes about above.

“Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation”

As well it should, as well it should (see my posts linked below).

Source: John McCain in the current issue of Contingencies, the magazine of the American Academy of Actuaries.

Obviously written before the crash.

Perfect

Oh Chaz?  My I remind you that it was the agitation of community organizers that banks were redlining the people for whom they were advocating for?  Poor people, that the banks decided did not have the  financial resources to afford mortgages?  So the call went out to call them rascists – and in 1986 had Democrat Congress controlled (along with Jimmah) pass the Community Reinvestment Act – "you WILL loan money to them".  And then created Freddie and Fannie, those monstrous "government companies" that incorporated the worst of the free market and government bumbling with Dems at the helm.  ANd then by their size, required the private banks to lower standards for lending – "borrow 100 – 120% of what you need?  No credit, poor credit – no problem!", and "income statement? – in order to compete and be able to sell their mortgages to Fannie and Freddie according to their rules.  And remember:

For many years the President and his Administration have not only warned of the systemic consequences of financial turmoil at a housing government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) but also put forward thoughtful plans to reduce the risk that either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac would encounter such difficulties. President Bush publicly called for GSE reform 17 times in 2008 alone before Congress acted.

Unfortunately, these warnings went unheeded, as the President’s repeated attempts to reform the supervision of these entities were thwarted by the legislative maneuvering of those who emphatically denied there were problems.

Too much money for too little house overpriced in their markets sold to people who either thought too highly of their ability to flip the house or had little resources to support their debt.

All as a result of government intervention and rule settings.  The market would have been more stable if the "20% down, 30 years to pay" stayed as the Golden Rule to owning a house.

Instead, that became "old fashioned" and created the bubble.

I still believe that my responses to his posts still hold true – here, here, here, here, here, and here.

We blog, you read, you decide (and blog it yourself!)