While the perpetrators of the housing bubble and the subsequent financial and economic catastrophe were enjoying a retreat at Jackson Hole, this nation and its people have been suffering because of their crimes.

 

The dishonest and guilty members of the deregulation, no regulation Bush regime that helped cause this debacle, like Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke, and Alan Greenspan and the criminal members of lending institutions that gathered in Wyoming refuse to accept responsibility for their role in this crisis and are not being held accountable.  On the contrary, they are being bailed out by the Bush administration who made their greedy fraud possible.

 

Here is just some of what Dean Baker writes at Truthout: "If the run-up in house prices could not be explained by the fundamentals, then it was a bubble, which would burst. This was easy to see for anyone who cared to look, but Greenspan and his sycophants could not be bothered. Greenspan insisted everything was fine - there was no housing bubble - and virtually the whole economics profession, including his fellow central bankers, acted an enablers touting Mr. Greenspan's wisdom.

    "While the exact timing and path of the housing market's collapse and the resulting turmoil in financial markets could not be predicted, the basic course of this tsunami was entirely foreseeable. The collapse of the bubble will destroy in the neighborhood of $8 trillion of housing wealth. Most of these losses will be absorbed by homeowners ($8 trillion comes to $110,000 per homeowner), but if just ten percent of the loss ends up on bank financial sheets, the losses will be $800 billion.

    "That is enough to put many banks under. Losses of this magnitude were virtually certain to sink Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two huge government-sponsored enterprises that created the secondary mortgage market in the United States. The current financial crisis was, therefore, an inevitable follow-on to the collapse of the housing bubble and will almost certainly amplify its negative impact on the US economy.

    "This all seemed painfully obvious from even a quick look at the housing data back in 2005 when the central bankers were honoring Alan Greenspan. In fact, it should have been obvious at least three years sooner.

    "But the Jackson Hole economists were convinced everything was just fine. Now, they are all saying no one could have foreseen the current crisis. And they say no one, at least among the Jackson Hole crowd, saw any problems coming.

 "The really tragic part of this story is there are no consequences. The same group of economists that led the economy into this catastrophe still has its hands on the wheel. Holding them accountable for their disastrous performance is simply not on the agenda.

    "Central bankers are not like dishwashers and custodians. They don't get fired when they mess up on the job. They don't even get a pay cut.

    "So, lets all hope the Jackson Hole crew had a good time at their summer retreat. We've paid a big price for it."

Will any Democrat speaking at the convention even mention this in their prime time speeches?  If they don't, they're headed for another election disaster.  Quit with the namby-pamby and break out the truth cudgel. Act like real Democrat's!