The problems in the current Stock market was caused by only one thing

GREED

The lenders pushed people into more home then they should and people bought more home than they should. They are both to blame.

If we bail out the people that have these loans we reward them and the lenders who made them. Both parties are suffering now.

Just wait, in a year or two, there will political hand wringing about lower income people not getting home loans. The financial industry will be leary about getting back into that market and the government will have to force those companies to write riskier loans, starting this whole process again.

There is plenty of blame to go around on the high risk home loan fiasco — government relaxing credit criteria, banks, mortgage brokers, appraisers and fiscally irresponsible home buyers.

Important as this is, changes in an economy as complex as ours are never the result of just one thing.

Come on, who believes that ??? No proof of income ??? You just make up a number and they take your word ???

sure....
we all believe that one....

Yes Jack that's how it was changed. One person said that they got $12 an hour and the mortgage broker stated their income in the high end range of $300,000 a year, and they got the loan.

This stuff went on all the time.

One states their income and that was not questioned at all. This went on and on for three years. It all stopped in June last year.

My kid bought his house on nothing but stated income for the year, and as he is a contractor and is paid out of accounts payable and gets a 1099 each year, he just guessed what he would make and the broker added 20% to that to get the loan. He got a 5% down loan, as he had that available. He got that loan in June last year, and if he were one week later he wouldn't have been able to get that loan, as it all stopped then.

that's all urban myth crapola.....

NO ONE loans money for a freakin house without proof of income....

My brother and his wife got a $100,000 mortgage and they wait tables! They got the mortgage through a fly-by-night lender. We were all shocked that they got one! They bought the house in 2004 and ,of course have forclosed by now. From what I've read, the saying in the mortgage industry over the past few years is that if it has a pulse, it gets a mortgage!

Yes they did Jack. And that has caused the problems. You may not believe it and I can't change that. However, it did occur for about three or four years or so.

I wish it was as simple as that. . .

Actually, the current market (both real estate market and stock market) 'problem' looks like a normal business cycle to me.

Rather than cursing the downtown, its makes much more sense to figure out how to take advantage of it.

No way you have to have a reasonable credit score and proof of income to get a loan along with 10% to 20% down unless you go V.A. anything other than those minor rules to follow the problem rest with the lender.
What the loan companies did was come up with "creative loans" such as adjustable rate, which allows a person to purchase a home for $250,00 to $500,000 while paying on the interest only for 3 to 4 yrs. The lender would tell the individual that they could sell in a hot market pocket the profit andpurchase another while seeking a fix rate loan.
Several of my friends ran the market in California for about 10 yrs. Salinas houses coasting $190.000 to $225.000 inflated in less than three yrs. to $500.000 to $700.000. Many were able to refinance pocket the profit and or sell, those caught without a fix rate fell to the increase rate as other did in hot market throughout the U.S. But greed for the most part by developers and lenders allow this to be the basis of the U.S. economy. What's goes up most come down sooner or later.

That's today Richard, not how it was seven plus months ago

OH, so the evil bush fixed the evil problem he created ???? *chuckle*

he's trying tooooooooo.

Me I'm looking for property along the Gulf coast taking a gamble that from the aftermath of Katrina the south will rise again or property in or near Costa Rica retire on the white sands of the caribbean drinking rum n' coca cola.

jjackkkk - He hasn't fixed anything yet. I imagine that he will be unable to act in a bipartisan manner. You know how he is, unless it's the Saudis, his attitude is my way or the highway. We all know his way.