Recession?

Bullshit, we all lowered our oversight of the banks. Where were the Democrats, the civil servants, and the federal reserve when it was proposed to lower regulation and oversight of the financial sector? How did wall street get away with creating a derivative market that dwarfs the stock market being COMPLETELY unregulated and made of secret deals? We sure ran our mouths to the rest of the world about responsibility and transparency, but our actions were diametrically opposed to our words.

Republicans controlled Congress even during Bill Clinton's Administration. As you pointed out Republican Phil Gramm sneaked in the provision forbidding the SEC or Fed to regulate the mortgage based certificates and credit defaut swaps.

EGGED ON BY GREENSPAN! Democrats and the rest were free to sound the alarm......go back onto the record and show us where Democrates raised hell in the face of this foolishness. I dare you to try.

I agree with hawkeye here; they're all at fault. They "all" have the fiduciary responsibility to protect its citizens from this kind of uncontrolled freedom to gamble on the security of our country. They were asleep at the switch. It's our fault to letting our government representatives become the "yes" men to lobbyists rather than the representatives of the people, because we kept voting in the same people.

BTW, many thought Greenspan was god; I never did. His playing with the interest rates never impressed me; not one iota.

I mentioned earlier in another thread that I believe the present crop of Democrats have a little more in the skull to be desired as they don't compare very well to Democrats of yester years. Maybe it was George H.W. Bush's push for term limits that removed many of those wily seasoned Democratic Congressmen and Senators. When a Congress(wo)man has been long enough s/he would be more confident in confronting the President and not just acquiesce to Presidential demands.