Good article.
I have to agree that the "houses for all" policy had a lot to do with the crisis. Trying to do social welfare by supplying loans is *not* the way to do public housing. (Building public housing is!)
When 50% of corperate profits come from "finance" then you know cart is before the horse somewhere.
Of course another real problem is the "android event horizon" we are approaching whereby Labour is loosing value in relation to capital due to automation. Add Globalised manufature and all workers in western countries are competing with machines and folks earning a fraction of their wages.
We cannot "invent" jobs fast enough to keep people employed, so middle management and finance to the rescue! Time for a 30 hour week and some limits on corporate profit distribution and renumeration.

Wow! Is Tristan Fabian's brother? How, er, elite! Change we can believe in!

Nothing about the derivatives trade again - not one word. Running into quadrillions of funny money, set up after the '87 crash by Greenspan and Co., with no explanation from Marxian or Keynesian meccano sets either. Another re-run of the "sub-prime started it all" myth. Yawn.

Again Tristian, you get an A for effort and an F for content.

As was mentioned by Diocletian, if Clinton hadn't leant on Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac to lend to those who were 'undesirables' then this would've been a much smaller 'meltdown' than it currently is. Sure, it was made under good intentions, however good intentions often have bad consequences.

"Those most vulnerable - including millions of working class Americans ...low interest rates as well as “teaser” rates which were only temporary. Other devices included low reserve requirements."

Here we go again - the Left trying to absolve the poor 'working people' of responsibility for their actions. These people entered into agreements knowing their own financial state and knowing whether they could repay the loans. To be sure, the option in the contract for them to walk away without the debt following them was foolish, however they got into the agreements themselves in the first place.

Time to come into the real world Tristian - no one was holding a gun to their heads to take out these loans.

Failed again Tristian. This article started off poorly and it didn't get any better.

Good on you for providing entertainment for us again tho!

The poor brought on the ubercrash - ho, ho, ho! I got my degree with some cash, connections and a sub-prime IQ, but the poor won't get in no matter what, ho, ho!

Now instead of the predictable cretinism and smugness, can some of these brilliant tories try to explain the multi-quadrillion USD derivatives bubble and its compulsory spread of mega-debt packages downwards? Or was that the product of homeless, workers and unemployed people (and no, by that second category I don't mean one of those nice European royal families you so admire and suck up to).

Mil-observer
It's explained in my first post in this thread. What part don't you understand?

It sincerely annoys me that so many companies are all coming out to attack governments for their own economic woes, how the motor car industry which has refused to produce more small cars and more alternate fuel cars attacks all of us for not buying large vehicles...

Look at CRA, a company owned primarily by Queen Liz. When BHP went to buy them they found that they are $40 billion in the red. How do they continue to trade while insolvent? How doe so many companies get away with creating more and more debt, whilst their bosses/ boards/ directors/ ceos... reap mega profits AND bonuses?

Governments ARE responsible to ensure that they get tougher with stricter controls and auditing standards and transparencies. Ofcourse the conservatives,a s in Australia, will oppose such controls. Afterall, to them the mega rich are always right and always must be protected, even to paying less tax than you or I.

But then I believe that the Australian liberal opposition are economic traitors, consistently attacking the economic credibility of the government, threatening its legislative program including taxation measures and proving that all they care about is absolute power and not the welfare of Australia