The answer, of course, is yes.
When OBL took down the twin towers (and yes, truthers, his cult members did), Greenspan panicked and took rates down and kept them down. And then we all know what happened next.
Here's HP's post from 2007, and the recent column on the MSN homepage (thanks Ray)
Did terrorists cause the housing mess?
The link may not seem obvious at first. But if you look at the Sept. 11 plotters' goals -- and at what has happened in the US since the attacks -- it's hardly far-fetched.
The federal funds rate continued to drop, hitting a low of 0.98% in December 2003. That was more than two years after the attacks. We were well into a powerful stock market recovery. The federal funds rate stayed around 1% long enough to set off a boom in low-cost mortgages and in home prices.
Home buyers discovered that very ordinary paychecks could now buy extraordinary homes. People with cash to deposit learned their money earned virtually nothing.
We could, of course, blame the Federal Reserve for keeping interest rates too low for too long. We could also blame Wall Street. Or mortgage lenders and their brokers. And we could blame the borrowers for being foolish. We certainly can't take any pride in the greed-driven decisions that fueled the problem.
But one big fact remains: None of this misery would have happened if Sept. 11 hadn't happened first.
50 comments:
forget about the stupid flip gamblers, the stupid low interest rates, the stupid M$M, the stupid housing shows, the stupid SOX regulations that allowed for something worse than Enron, the stupid mortgage backed securities. it's all someone else's fault who somehow predicted our country could get this stupid on so many levels.
this article is like a drunk driver getting into an accident, and then blaming the store for selling alcohol.
There is some truth to this analysis. OBL has mentioned in several of his speeches that his aim was not to defeat the US militarily, but economically.
MAX
And the answer.
Well, in some way they did cause the Fed to react and lower the rates. But the economy was already headed south in 2001 (Tech bubble anyone).
If I had to say, I would say it had some effect on the rates. Greenspan problably kept the rates low for a longer period of time.
The whole cause, NO WAY.
Danny
Too bad NORAD stood down
Al-Qaeda planned this from the start. The initial planning for what would become known as "Operation Credit Crisis" were drawn up in the "Economic Policy and Finance" cave, and sent over to the "Strategic Policy Initiatives for a New Muslim Century" cave for review, before being presented to Bin-Laden for final approval.
Even a 7-year old can tell that the WTC towers fell because of pre-planted charges sequenced by a computer that transmitted wireless signals to each floor - as captured on live video, audio tracks, eye witnesses and chemical residues.
Each charge created "outward smoke squibs" that also proove 100% that the towers fell from a more chilling method - NOT what bushco and clinton, et. all, want you to believe.
But whatever.
I agree. Too many stupid people on the planet and 9/11 investigaton stoppers in Washington DC. All the "no-oath" 9/11 criminals are just walking away un-touched. Hell, even Bush gives them presidential pardons and our elected officials just turn their heads!
BWAAA!! (BOTH REP/DEM PARTIES ARE LIARS!)
But whatever. They destroyed America (and continue to today) and there's nothing but sorry for what the have done as they continue to dig their own graves each day. They cant even back-peddal now! (But hey, how about free money people!) Even though you spent an extra $600 in higher gas prices last year alone.
Their unprecidented (and documented)lies, fear campaigns, mass-media deceptions, propaganada networks, illegal profiteering, mass murders, torturing, war mongering and chilling 9/11 cover-ups will continue for many decades ahead.
The worse is yet to come.
TERRA, TERRA, TERRA!!!!!!!!!
Bring it on!!!!!!!
Go Bushy-boy go! My Jesus hero!
God bless America!
Osama Bin Laden's
Check list Found in Cave.
Destroy world trade centers.- Check
West defeated in Iraq and Afghanistan. - Check
Western Financial collapse.- Check
Mission Accomplished
Can we all use 9/11 as our scapegoat? Or is that just for the experts, politicians, cops, and media whores?
We Americans are wimps. We run around like headless chickens, scared out of our minds while cops tazer anyone who makes eye contact. Even our foreign policy has turned into, "if we get scared, you die."
Osama Bin Laden just proved to the world what cowards we all are. We're afraid of our own shadows, sheepish in the presence of anyone in a uniform, and unwilling to take any responsibility for decisions we make or actions we take.
So Bin Laden is responsible for Greenspan's errors. That's quite an admission, America. A dying religious lunatic in a cave has control over the decision-making of our most powerful people and yet we "don't spend that much time on 'im."
What a cop out.
What utter bullshit.
No, OBL did not cause the housing bubble. Is it a factor? Perhaps.
Let us not forget that the Housing bubble followed the dot.com bubble all of which we can lay at the feet of Mr. Greenspan.
After all, he has repeatedly told us that the FED should not work to prevent bubbles but stand ready to clean up the mess. Many believe that he purposely created the housing bubble to clean up the vast losses of the dot.com bubble.
Who cut taxes on the rich and corporate America? Just as importantly who agreed to the tax cuts. The same Mr. Greenspan who supported Reagan in his tax cuts and then urged the increased taxes on SS to provide for the baby boomers. But did Mr. Greenspan ever urge Reagan to save the increased SS tax. No, Reagan used the money to plug the budget deficit of his own creation.
Reagan followed by Bush 41st left us in dire straights with there ridiculous theories that debt is good. And where was Mr. Greenspan? Sitting there with his Greensapn put ready to cut rates to accommodate the new economy that he helped create... the FIRE economy. And of course to protect the stock market.
Did he ever once come up with any sort of sane tax plan for savers who earn a little bit on interest? Interest that is clearly subjected to double taxation, like most of the money the average Joe earns?
What happens to a country and its economy when debt has been substituted for income? Is the mess around us simply a predicted result?
Did Mr. Greenspan really need to keep interest rates so low for so long after 9-11? Did he have to go out of his way to encourage the use of ARMS? Is this but the end result of an economy that has deliberately destroyed good paying middle income jobs?
What does it say of those in charge that they could not manage the aftermath of 9-11? Or for that matter Katrina?
Who is to say what would have happened after Bush 43rd was elected? He told us during his first campaign that he would cut taxes on the Ubers. He believes in trickle down economics.
Are we to believe that Mr. Greenspan would have taken a different position on the tax cuts? Hard to say.
But Mr. Greenspan has always supported tax cuts. He is a banker, and his bank the FED loans money to the government. The FED earns interest on the loan. It is unreasonable to assume that a budget surplus could mean fewer profits for the FED. Once a debt is paid then the interest stream to the holder of the debt disappears.
But Mr. Greenspan failed to prevent the bubble, which transferred the wealth of the middle to the upper class. He knew full well that lower interest rates stimulate housing. It always has.
Ella
PKK Grandma here--
Actually, there is something to that we might consider. A year or so after 9/11, Osama Bin Saden wrote a long letter which was published in a British? newspaper, maybe the Telegraph or Guardian; re the ultimate goal to make the highly leveraged Western financial system, which he praised as very organized but vulnerable, collapse. He felt the power of the Western economic engine exploited peoples of the less developed areas...he said the system was very powerful in it's effect, but was being misused or something along those lines. He said it was fragile/vulnerable if looked at the right way...
Combine that with a cultural background of Islamic sharia forbidding all but the smallest amount of interest, yet his father being a large scale businessman, and I think you have a person with more than average insight on the workings of finance and business.
Certainly his attack is interwoven as a contributing factor to the current situation.
This is a miserable excuse.
OBL did not force anyone to make stupid decisions, nor he did create the "look how beautiful is the house i own" mentality.
But i guess it's more convenient accuse someone else of our mistakes than take our own responsibilities.
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So, does this mean that the evil perpetuators of 9-11 also caused the presently-inflating bubble in Gold?
"But one big fact remains: None of this misery would have happened if Sept. 11 hadn't happened first."
I think that even the fifth grader knows about the 2000 the NASDAQ crashed and that the economy was in shambles and the rich wanted the 9/11 bailout.
i.e. 9/11 just didn't happen, it was a staged event to remake the economy.
No, sorry! After I read the analysis, I realized that it is yet another MSM spin doctor trying to help Bush put the blame on terrorists. This formula worked wonders for Bush in the past 6 years. He milked it so bad that he could rally people against anyone who didn't agree with his policies.
Now, he's again using the media to try and rally Americans and push them to spend more and buy more houses, tricking them into thinking that by so doing, they will defeat the ennemy. I don't think it will work this time around.
None of this misery would have happened if Sept. 11 hadn't happened first.
I think you're way off. Did Osama cause the tech bubble? No he did not. Did Osama have some influence on monetary policy? Sure, but not to the extent you're implying. These bubbles are the result of loose, expansionist, monetary policy. The only one to blame is the Fed. Don't pass the buck Keith, that's the job of the mainstream media.
OBL may have been involved in 911, but there is no doubt in my mind, I mean I would bet my life that it was an inside job. I just can't see how it wasn't.
I think the link was very obvious at first. No 911, no way we have this housing bubble.
Not just interst rates. I remember story after story in the msm about people staying at home and putting money in their homes as some sort of "nesting".
I guess it could just be a coincidence.
And what caused the 9/11 attack?
A vote for Obama is a vote for Osama.
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before she was assassinated, Bhutto told the world that OBL was dead
at the 2 min 15 sec mark
Last time I heard, OBL was in the construction biz before he went on his so called terror biz. So, maybe, just maybe, it was a biz decision on his part to cause a construction boom that lasted for years and he's been reaping profits ever since. Just maybe...
Not really, because even though the FFR was at 1% the mortgage rates only went down to 4.5% at the lowest. The cause of the housing bubble was the liars loans and option ARMs. Investors and lenders turned a blind eye to risk, plain and simple.
AAA US Treasuries pat 4%
AAA CDO's and CLO's pay 8%
Do you see a problem here?
Keith, your arguments make about as much sense like when a mass murderer says "TV made me do it".
Even a 7-year old can tell that the WTC towers fell because of pre-planted charges sequenced by a computer that transmitted wireless signals to each floor - as captured on live video, audio tracks, eye witnesses and chemical residues.
Each charge created "outward smoke squibs" that also proove 100% that the towers fell from a more chilling method - NOT what bushco and clinton, et. all, want you to believe.
Uh no. Those "smoke squibs" are what you get from catastrophic overload of the structure as the top part slammed in the parts below. These are joints failing and floors collapsing spewing out stuff, as the stress gets transmitted down the steel frame at the speed of sound. So this interior collapse goes down faster than the visible big one.
The reason why it looks like a building demolition is because buildings all collapse the same way due to the laws of physics, intentional or not. Real world is not like the movies. Once you have an overload the highest stress is near the bottom and it collapses inside, there. The rest is just a concrete and steel waterfall.
If it were explosives, then why bother with the planes?
The Conspiratorial They would have just bombed it like before and blamed it on Saddam. Quick, easy, we're in Baghdad in 2001 and not 2003.
In general, yes, Osama bin Laden is a much better strategic thinker than most of the U.S. government.
Osama saw how the USSR fell (economic collapse after lies and a land war in Afghanistan), and learned the lesson well.
I though the Jews and Bush took down the twin towers. Make up your mind.
Geez, I was expecting more from the 9-11 fantasizers ('cause they ain't interested in the truth). The "squibs" happened AFTER the upper levels started falling, not before because they were caused by pressure waves. You also have to explain why every major building demo group says you're all nuts with these "controlled demolition" claims.
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Al-Qaeda planned this from the start. The initial planning for what would become known as "Operation Credit Crisis" were drawn up in the "Economic Policy and Finance" cave, and sent over to the "Strategic Policy Initiatives for a New Muslim Century" cave for review, before being presented to Bin-Laden for final approval.
February 19, 2008 2:04 PM<<<
yep, you got it bud, ha ha ha....
really though his name is benjamin ladenstein....
Anonymous said...
Osama Bin Laden's
Check list Found in Cave.
Destroy world trade centers.- Check
West defeated in Iraq and Afghanistan. - Check
Western Financial collapse.- Check
Mission Accomplished
February 19, 2008 2:15 PM<<<
yeh the guy with the bad kidneys and the brand new unfired ak47 living in a cave somewhere was responsible for the most complex and comprehensive terrorist attack in history...ha ha ha.....yeh right....
oh so osama wrote a letter to a britis newspaper. well that is nice. can i ask how do we know who wrote what? who is this man that we contantly search for and can never find? how do we know he really exist? the planes being flown into the buildings in some unknown manner i might add, were just the distraction to divert attention from the explosives used to blow up the buildings. how long must we suffer rom this nonsense. the buildings were blown up. anybody with half their brain tied behind their back would know this by now.
To Doo Doo in Deep....
The towers were NOT brought down by pre-planted explosives. Do some real research. this has been refuted time after time. The towers came dwon from top to bottom. If you watch videos of buildings being imploded, they collapse at the bottom first. There are some conspiracy theories I believe in but this is not one of them. Sorry, you're just wrong on this one.
Conspiracy creeps, do the world a favor and kill yourselves. Seriously.
Thanks.
Keith, did OBL's guys knock down WTC7? How did they do that, cuz no one else knows!
I thought the Housing Bubble was caused by a lapse in lending standards, fraud and corruption,.... not low interest rates.
Bernanke will bring the interest rates back down to Greenspan levels and let's see how that works to re-inflate the Housing Bubble. The OBL/911= Housing Bubble argument is pretty weak in my opinion. The Housing Bubble was a result of systemic societal rot and greed.
If OBL and 9/11 were to blame then why would other countries be experiencing similiar and more extreme Housing Bubbles?
The answer is "sort of". The attacks provided political justification for the invasion of the Middle East and an extremely loose monetary policy.
911 was staged so they could circumvent the constitution,we'll be a socialist state soon, with big bro watching and controlling everyone
When OBL took down the twin towers (and yes, truthers, his cult members did)
You mean the shady group members, who control this government and many others, ALLOWED Al-Qaeda to attack us, in order to pull a phony war in Iraq to transfer trillions of taxpayer money to the shady group's pockets? After all, the same Al-Qaeda idiots were being monitored by the FBI for years. Do you really believe that a powerful shady group wouldn't be willing to pull this off in order to make trillions of dollars?
Do you really think that all this foreign aid to Africa now, that will cost billions to taxpayer while the country is bankrupt, has anything to do with charity? If this government doesn't give a damn about the African Americans (or Whites for that matter) in Detroit, Cleveland, New Orleans, or injured soldiers at the Walter Reed, do you really think that it will give a damn about some poor bastard in Africa? Let me guess, all the contracts for this expensive aid will go to companies run by members of Skull & Bones, Bilderberg Group, Council on Foreign Relations, etc.
So easy for a shady group undercover agent (lots of rogue Mossad, MI-6, or CIA agents out there who crossed to the dark side) to infiltrate one of those stupid Al-Qaeda cells and come up with a pre-engineered plan to use airplanes to hit the Twin Towers.
Oops, never mind that a major Israeli company in one of the Towers, which was leasing the space for more than a decade, decided to move out a week before the attack. Oh, what about all the unusual put-options activity on the same airlines right before the attack? Accelerated investments speculating a downturn in the value of Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch (two New York investment firms severely damaged by the World Trade Center attack) were also observed.
That investigation has more holes than John Wayne Gacy's basement. And for all the stupid people who come up with the idiotic reasoning of "the government is too incompetent to pull that off". Sure it's but this shady group is not composed by pushpaper-government fools. This group is powerful, highly experienced, highly educated, and intelligent individuals who use our government's incompetence to get away with a lot of misdeeds. One that comes to mind is the $8 billion somehow "lost" or "unaccounted for" in Iraq. Once again, the "incompetent" government just "lost" $8 billion. Sure, nice cover.
Hey, but the majority likes to take the blue pill and go shopping for Chinese crap, instead.
Ho Chi Minh once spoke about how in order to beat a huge enemy you make him bleed with many small cuts.
Did Osama cause the collapse and the greediness of most Americans?
NO!
BUTTTT he was a catalyst who could see a small $500k operation causing HUGE economic havok.
Was 911 planned by us and them?
Maybe...In order to help each others goals...Bush gets power and Iraq...Osmama get his Jihad and more followers than he ever had...
Is he dead? Probably like 3-4 years ago.
Are we being consistantly lied by our government?
You bet your sweet ass.
Pathetic...
If you were too stupid to plan for the future, maybe you should have elected better leaders.
Pretty soon you'll be blaming the mess in Iraq and Afghanistan on OBL too. Idiots - no one FORCED you to go to war - you CHOSE to go.
So instead of asking your leaders to justify their actions which led to this mess (including Bernanke and Greenspan) you'll just put the blame on OBL and let them get away with it.
Who's to blame for poverty... OBL!
Taxes? OBL!
New Orleans levees? OBL!
911? OBL!
Teen pregnancy? OBL!
Your toilet backing up? OBL!
Pathetic lemmings!
Yeah... just keep blaming everyone else for all your problems. That's a sure way of making sure they're solved! Go bomb a few more countries!
Anonymous Anonymous said...
When OBL took down the twin towers (and yes, truthers, his cult members did)
You mean the shady group members, who control this government and many others, ALLOWED Al-Qaeda to attack us, in order to pull a phony war in Iraq to transfer trillions of taxpayer money to the shady group's pockets? After all, the same Al-Qaeda idiots were being monitored by the FBI for years. Do you really believe that a powerful shady group wouldn't be willing to pull this off in order to make trillions of dollars?
Do you really think that all this foreign aid to Africa now, that will cost billions to taxpayer while the country is bankrupt, has anything to do with charity? If this government doesn't give a damn about the African Americans (or Whites for that matter) in Detroit, Cleveland, New Orleans, or injured soldiers at the Walter Reed, do you really think that it will give a damn about some poor bastard in Africa? Let me guess, all the contracts for this expensive aid will go to companies run by members of Skull & Bones, Bilderberg Group, Council on Foreign Relations, etc.
So easy for a shady group undercover agent (lots of rogue Mossad, MI-6, or CIA agents out there who crossed to the dark side) to infiltrate one of those stupid Al-Qaeda cells and come up with a pre-engineered plan to use airplanes to hit the Twin Towers.
Oops, never mind that a major Israeli company in one of the Towers, which was leasing the space for more than a decade, decided to move out a week before the attack. Oh, what about all the unusual put-options activity on the same airlines right before the attack? Accelerated investments speculating a downturn in the value of Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch (two New York investment firms severely damaged by the World Trade Center attack) were also observed.
That investigation has more holes than John Wayne Gacy's basement. And for all the stupid people who come up with the idiotic reasoning of "the government is too incompetent to pull that off". Sure it's but this shady group is not composed by pushpaper-government fools. This group is powerful, highly experienced, highly educated, and intelligent individuals who use our government's incompetence to get away with a lot of misdeeds. One that comes to mind is the $8 billion somehow "lost" or "unaccounted for" in Iraq. Once again, the "incompetent" government just "lost" $8 billion. Sure, nice cover.
Hey, but the majority likes to take the blue pill and go shopping for Chinese crap, instead.
February 19, 2008 8:28 PM<<
don't forget about the dancing israelis in new jersey. don't forget about the israelis dressed like arabs that were found driving a white van filled with explosives on the george washington bridge that morning. don't forget about the 4000 jews who were warned not to come to work that morning by instant messaging via odigo, a israeli company, and didn't. no let us not forget the small things about this event. let us not forget that when asked about the event, Binyamin "Bibi" Netanyahu, said it was good for israel, nevertheless this is after 3000 americans had died in the buildings. let us not forget who was it that stold the gold out of the basements from the gold vaults in those buildings? and who was it that took out terrorist attack insurance on the buildings a few months before it happened. and silverstein. silverstein was a front man for israelis. before he became a big 'real esate entrepreneur, he was the proud owner of a new york city tiddy bar that besides being a scummy place as usual was also the focal point of Ecstasy distribution in the new york area and let us not forget that Ecstasy is manufactured in israel for distribution worldwide. so now bush himself has said that the iraqis were not involved in 911 nor did they have wmd's. saddam himself said on 60 minutes a few weeks ago during a interview that was made prior to his murder, and he said he just made that up to scare his enemies. we made him and then we killed him. how long must we suffer from this nonsense? there is so much more, but this addition perhaps will suffice for now.
Keith,
I think it's time you get a real job and stop pretending to be jaunting all over Europe.
I dont believe OBL planned to ruin our economy. His plan was to kill as many civilians as possible, via our own commercial planes.
The President was foolish to broadcast that everyone should buy homes in 2003. Likewise, Greenspan had no business to announce it was o.k to use adjustable loans to purchase homes. All the while he acknowledge real estate was "bubbly" in some locations.
IMO, if 911 never happened, we would be pulling out of recession at this point in time. Real estate peaks and troughs typically last 6 years each, But this time is different...recession has been postponed by more than 6 years, so now, it will be so much, much worse. We're entering recession... depression style.
Thanks Bush & Greenspan!
It's true. I sell real estate because Osama told me to.
so what's up with building 7? It didn't get hit by a plane and falling debris didn't damage it enough to cause its nearly perfect collapse nor did the fires burning in it.
Lemme guess it decided to collapsed afterit realized that the BBC and CNN reported it as having done so!
It's all just physics folks now just move along and go pull something else while we pull this building and I collect my insurance money.
Anon @7:28
"the most complex and comprehensive terrorist attack in history."
Huh??? It was hijacking 4 planes, you know like terrorists had done a hundred times before. But this time flying them into buildings - not exactly a complicated plan, not a comprehensive one. And strangely enough when you hit a building with a kiloton or so worth of energy it falls down, surprise surprise...
They somehow managed to not hit a building with one of those planes even, they were so lacking in the skill department.
Taking out the entire north American electric grid with coordinated targetted strikes would be complex terrorism, that was just standard hijack a plane, with the extra twist of crashing them into buildings (which doesn't take any extra planning over a more usual hijack).
Here's why McClown is going to win this election:
http://tinyurl.com/2jbl7v
Anonymous said...
Conspiracy creeps, do the world a favor and kill yourselves. Seriously.
Thanks.
February 19, 2008 8:00 PM
===========================
Yeah, you said it... I've been praying that the 'Power's That Be' would do just THAT! Bush and all his conspirators...
Anonymous said...
>>>Hey, but the majority likes to take the blue pill and go shopping for Chinese crap, instead.
February 19, 2008 8:28 PM
===================
HERE HERE Well said...
Before you blame Bin Laden for the housing bubble, let’s get the interest rate and economic facts straight. Greenspan started cutting rates on 1/01 and had made 7 cuts for 300 basis points before 9/11. The US growth cycle turned down in Q2 2000, and the recession began in Q2 2001 (source: ECRI). So the recession had already begun and Greenspan was cutting rates before 9/11. Bin Laden had nothing to do with this.
Post 9/11 there were 4 successive cuts for 175 basis points, followed 11 months later by a 50 pt. cut, followed 7 months later by the last rate cut of 25 pts. Whatever effect you want to attribute to Bin Laden can only refer to these 4 to 6 cuts.
Did Bin Laden cause the housing bubble? No. Greenspan was already creating his masterpiece before it happened. And who can say how far he would have cut on his own without 9/11? At best you can contend that 9/11 exasperated the situation. Maybe 9/11 was icing on the cake?
(note: I didn’t read all the other remarks; apologies if someone else already pointed this out)
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Keith,
I think it's time you get a real job and stop pretending to be jaunting all over Europe.
February 20, 2008 12:17 AM<<<
here, here....
Home prices were already rising fast before 9/11. The super-low rates may have turbocharged the gains, but it is quite possible that the housing cycle would have culminated in a euphoric top, followed by a painful decline, regardless of rates, terrorists or any other factors.
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