You ask a good question even as you hint at the answer. Objectively, both parties bear considerable blame. Yes, the Dems were instrumental in passing the CRA and pressuring Fannie and Freddie to underwrite the goofy loans that were being forced on local banks. But the GOP was roughly equally at fault for their acquiescence to the repeal of Glass-Steagal. Glass-Steagall was a 17 page bill that kept banks who had access to the Fed lending facilities from gambling with taxpayer money. It did a damn good job from 1932 to 1987. If you’ve been watching the hearings on finan reform lately, you’ve heard mutterings along the lines of “we need to bring back Glass Steagall”, and I think Sen Levin said that, quote unquote. Both of these sagas are longish stories that I can’t precisely chronicle...(but the info is out there if you wish to delve. I believe it is helpful to understanding “how we got here”)
But I’d also suggest that the “solution” (if any actually exist) lies not in the assignment of blame to this or that party. Where it *does* lie, IMO, is along the lines of what occurred after the S&L crisis in the early nineties. After that crisis was resolved, over 1,000 successful prosecutions were carried out by the Feds and great numbers of bank executives did hard time behind bars. Now? You can count the number of bank execs who have been prosecuted on one hand with fingers to spare.
You may wish to look for a few videos by William (Bill) Black on YouTube. He has a smallish number of lectures and interviews posted there. He was the primary Fed prosecutor during the S&L fiasco, and makes it pretty clear what was going on.
Now I will say, that what you might learn from Bill Black is forensic. It’s historical. It may be that you’re more interested in what we will be facing as time goes by. It’s not pretty, but it is a serious purge and reality-confront that we almost certainly cannot avoid.
BTTT! Good post.