Letters to The Patch show how poorly our primary news media keep them informed

Comments posted by PATCH readers often demonstrate how our alleged news media have kept and continue to keep most people in abysmal ignorance. This is especially true of the causes of the financial crash.

There's an old saying, Serbian, I think, 'Don't look where you fell; look where you slipped."

To understand those causes - where our leaders slipped - takes some digging. For example: 

Michael Bloomberg‘s comments to Occupy Wall Street protesters:

“… It was not the banks that created the mortgage crisis. It was, plain and simple, [Democratic] Congress who forced everybody to go and give mortgages to people who were on the cusp. …

“… they were the ones who pushed Fannie and Freddie to make a bunch of loans that were imprudent, if you will. They were the ones that pushed the banks to loan to everybody. And now we want to go vilify the banks because it’s one target, it’s easy to blame them and congress certainly isn’t going to blame themselves...”

Source: http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/politics/2011/11/3971362/bloomberg-plain-and-simple-congress-caused-mortgage-crisis-not-bank

New  York Times reporter, Gretchen Morgenson, wrote “Reckless Endangerment”, a book that confirms Bloomberg’s remarks in great detail. Before reading, take your blood pressure meds. Sad thing is, none of them were even charged with a crime.

Also:

“Investors Business Daily claims that they have the “smoking gun” that shows exactly how the government created the bubble in the first place by intimidating banks into distorted lending practices — based on a flawed study:

At President Clinton’s direction [Democrat], no fewer than 10 federal agencies issued a chilling ultimatum to banks and mortgage lenders to ease credit for lower-income minorities or face investigations for lending discrimination and suffer the related adverse publicity. They also were threatened with denial of access to the all-important secondary mortgage market and stiff fines, along with other penalties.

The threat was codified in a 20-page “Policy Statement on Discrimination in Lending” and entered into the Federal Register on April 15, 1994, by the Interagency Task Force on Fair Lending. Clinton set up the little-known body to coordinate an unprecedented crackdown on alleged bank redlining.

The charge of redlining was later found to be false. As in FALSE!.

Source: http://news.investors.com/article/589858/201110310805/housing-crisis-oba...

Additional sources:

[Democrat] Barney Frank’s role, “What housing crisis?” 2005, video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW5qKYfqALE

Bush & McCain [Republicans] repeatedly warn of housing bubble and potential meltdown

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMnSp4qEXNM