From Pine View Farm

Ideology and Wishful Thinking, the Foundations of Republicanism 2

Krugman:

Talk to conservatives about the financial crisis and you enter an alternative, bizarro universe in which government bureaucrats, not greedy bankers, caused the meltdown. It’s a universe in which government-sponsored lending agencies triggered the crisis, even though private lenders actually made the vast majority of subprime loans. It’s a universe in which regulators coerced bankers into making loans to unqualified borrowers, even though only one of the top 25 subprime lenders was subject to the regulations in question.

Oh, and conservatives simply ignore the catastrophe in commercial real estate: in their universe the only bad loans were those made to poor people and members of minority groups, because bad loans to developers of shopping malls and office towers don’t fit the narrative.

Speaking of catastrophes in commercial real estate, as I traversed the Jersey Turnpike this weekend, I saw the number of vacant warehouses has increased since my last trip up that way, and office buildings which had been occupied by the same folks ever since I first traveled that road [mumble] years ago are now for rent, cheap.

One sign by a warehouse park touted “1,000,000+ Square Feet Available!” Three of those is a square mile.

And I only went from Exit 7A to Exit 11.

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2 comments

  1. donviti

    December 14, 2009 at 10:25 am

    Christie is going to solve all the problems in NJ….just wait

     
  2. Frank

    December 14, 2009 at 8:25 pm

    I’ll leave town first.
    Wait.
    I’m already leaving town.
    As Aubrey Daniels once said, if something isn’t working, you can’t fix the problem by doing the same thing harder.