unconnected dots... again

Well, well, well. It seems that the Bush Administration had been warned ahead of time of the possibility of the current financial crisis, and had been warned in fairly specific terms:

- Regulators told bankers exotic mortgages were often inappropriate for buyers with bad credit.

- Banks would have been required to increase efforts to verify that buyers actually had jobs and could afford houses.
- Regulators proposed a cap on risky mortgages so a string of defaults wouldn't be crippling.
- Banks that bundled and sold mortgages were told to be sure investors knew exactly what they were buying.
- Regulators urged banks to help buyers make responsible decisions and clearly advise them that interest rates might skyrocket and huge payments might be due sooner than expected.

Will this be the hallmark of the reign of George W. Bush: obliviousness in the face of warning?

The administration's blind eye to the impending crisis is emblematic of its governing philosophy, which trusted market forces and discounted the value of government intervention in the economy. Its belief ironically has ushered in the most massive government intervention since the 1930s.

Many of the banks that fought to undermine the proposals by some regulators are now either out of business or accepting billions in federal aid to recover from a mortgage crisis they insisted would never come. Many executives remain in high-paying jobs, even after their assurances were proved false.