The Madness of the Crowd
October 2011
The “Occupy Wall Street Movement” illustrates a certain type of thinking. Its blindly related to “The Affordable Housing Act” passed by Congress in 1996 under the name of “The National Homeownership Strategy”. (see more)
The National Homeownership Strategy encompassed parallel regulatory and legislative reforms during 1994 and 1995. Examples include:
- The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) was revised to force lenders to make loans to uncreditworthy borrowers as a cost of doing business
Public demand ensued. Huge public demand. Everyone was hopeful, hopeful that their loan would be approved, hopeful that their appraisal would come in okay, hopeful that their full price bid would be accepted.
Many people outbid even full price home prices!
The pressure was on banks to loan – we wanted our houses! We wanted our loans! Money flowed fast and prices went up.
Question: Was that Wall Streets fault?
Why is that? – Was that not the work of Congress?
Unleashing a buying opportunity and flooding the economy with giddy success?
Then fed chairman Alan Greespan termed it “irrational exuberance”.
“Irrational” being the key word. And now that group thinking intends to occupy Wall Street.
Wonderful. Just wonderful.
