@teenyboone,
teenyboone, Actually, Reagan was the one who deregulated the bank industry, but the real meltdown began before the Clinton Presidency, although Clinton helped exacerbate the problem by loosening Freddie and Fannie loans to the unqualified buyers. Finger pointing at one president really doesn't answer all the accumulation of problems that past presidents and congress failed to do. Even the rating companies that graded those mortgage derivatives didn't do their jobs correctly, and the SEC also failed at the switch. At the bottom of all this problem was greed. Home sellers and mortgage companies sold homes to unqualified buyers, and many borrowed against their home equities to spend money they really didn't have. Credit was too easy, and most consumers spent money by plastic and paying only the interest on their balances.
All this consumer spending made it look as though our economy was growing at 3%, but was actually the beginning of this recession.
When the value of homes began to drop, and the mortgage was more than the house was worth, the banks and consumers lost most of their equity. The biggest problem we now face is that responsible people who purchased homes are now losing their jobs and their homes which exacerbates our economic problems. Unemployment continues to climb, and there's no sign this will improve any time soon.
You are correct in that the Obama presidency is going to end up shooting themselves on both feet, because they're trying to get republican support for their health plan that will never appear. Obama's biggest problem is the fact that he doesn't have the majority of democrats who will support his health plan. It's going to be an uphill battle all the way.
