<div>Review of "Obamanomics" at URL below:</div>
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<div><a href="http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/feature/2008/07/29/obamanomics/index.html">http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/feature/2008/07/29/obamanomics/index.html</a></div>
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<div>"Obamanomics" author and investment banker John Talbot, who explicitly predicted the current housing/mortgage crisis in 2003 when he wrote "The Coming Crash In The Housing Market"</div>
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<div><a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Coming-Crash-Housing-Market/dp/007142220X">http://www.amazon.ca/Coming-Crash-Housing-Market/dp/007142220X</a></div>
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<div>asserts that part of the reason for the housing crisis was a lack of sensible regulation (including the repeal of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act in 1999):</div>
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<div><a href="http://www.realpolitical.net/2008/06/obamanomics/">http://www.realpolitical.net/2008/06/obamanomics/</a></div>
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<div>Excerpt below from URL above:</div>
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<p>In chapter 3 of this book, "The Current Financial Crisis," he continues to explain what went wrong in that industry and in this entire credit and financial crisis happening now by saying that it had everything to do with so-called small government. Small government is consistently pushed as the better system by the GOP and they dismiss anything else by saying that government shouldn't control our lives. That's dismissive to the point of being inaccurate and totally misleading. From this book I learned how flawed that approach can be when it comes to something so essential to all of us like housing. Small government actually signifies lack of regulation, which flings wide open the door to greed and corruption, and unchecked greed and corruption, Talbot says, are exactly what caused the housing market to crash:</p>
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<p>…due to lack of regulation, an entire industry of predatory lenders grew up. They were not interested in seeing home ownership increase in our nation. They were only interested in maximizing their profits, regardless of how unscrupulous their practices.</p>
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<p>The GOP wants us to actually believe in their trickle down theory — that wealth in the hands of the <em>responsible few</em> will eventually be distributed evenly down to the masses. They make it taboo to say you support big government while their state and federal officials still push tax increases just like Democrats, but deliver far less to regular people who could benefit from social programs.</p>
<p>In this book he argues that Obama believes in a bottom up theory, that wealth distributed among the masses results in an uplifted economy. He explains that regulation is simply the insurance we all have against the lawlessness of greed:</p>
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<p>It is regulation that insures contracts in a free economy are honored. It is regulation that allows the development of a sophisticated financial marketplace with sophisticated securities, and contracts that allow for the formation of corporations, the protection of investments, the providing of insurance, and the sharing of risk… No one is in favor of too much regulation. But this financial crisis should alert everyone to the fact that free markets cannot regulate themselves.</p>
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<p>Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett</p></blockquote></div>