Politics

"The Occupiers have the wrong address. The subprime crisis was designed in Washington, not New York."

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The Cato Institute's Tom Palmer reviews some of the complaints made by the Occupy Wall Street protesters and helps identify the culprit:

What caused the crisis, the indebtedness, the unemployment, the stagnation? The culprits are state agencies and enterprises, including our Federal Reserve (our government's bank), Federal Housing Administration (FHA), Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), and Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac), which jointly flooded the country with cheap credit and encouraged and subsidized unsound banking and subprime mortgages, all to encourage wider home ownership, paper prosperity, and cozy relationships with their cronies.  We got a housing bubble, mountains of unpayable debt, and a financial crisis. Thanks, Uncle Sam.

The Occupiers have the wrong address. The subprime crisis was designed in Washington, not New York.

To follow Reason's ongoing coverage of Occupy Wall Street, click here. Check out former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson's visit to the protests in the video below.