A short  17 months later, 7/2008, unemployment was climbing, the markets were falling and gasoline was near $4.50 a gallon.

A couple of things had happened.

First the housing bubble collapsed just as the oil prices ballooned.  What caused this?

"WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 (1999)-- In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

Snip

'From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''

Snip

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, does not lend money directly to consumers. Instead, it purchases loans that banks make on what is called the secondary market. By expanding the type of loans that it will buy, Fannie Mae is hoping to spur banks to make more loans to people with less-than-stellar credit ratings.

In case you don't know, Clinton was Prez in 1999.a

And loaning money to people who can't even afford to borrow at even the lowest rates is without a doubt a disaster in the making.

Now fast forward to 4/2008. For the previous six months or so the Fed had been dumping money into the markets to keep them liquid and to stem the foreclosures. And it was working. Things didn't look good, but things looked under control.

Oil prices started the year at around $93.00 and had increased a little bit over $5.00 to $98 at the beginning of April, then $12.00 in April to end at $110 and by the middle of July oil was at $146 and gasoline as $4.00 a gallon.

Oil prices.

Along with increased energy prices, everything that it affects jumped in price. The people who could barely hang on started defaulting and the spiral started.

The dagger that was thrust into America's financial heart is oil pricing.

And there is no doubt that it is Democrats who, by opposing drilling in America supported the speculators belief that shortages would occur and that they could safely bid the price up. And dear hearts, they did.  

So that's what caused the collapse that elected a President who couldn't fix the problem despite having large majorities in both Houses who poured millions into the markets and whose predecessor, had popped the speculators bubble

by opening up off shore drilling.

Of course that didn't suit Obama who had said high gas was okay.

So he acted immediately to stop the nonsense of a pro energy policy.

Now  what else do we know? Well, remember turning loose Freddie and Fannie by Bubba in 1999?? Well, by 2003 it was apparent that things weren't running real well.  So Bush acted.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 10-- The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.
The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.

Of course the Democrats blocked it.

''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.''

Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.

But my, you are sensitive and willing to take any comment as an attack.  Yes, anyone who wants to do the work can go look him up and see his body of work - the good, the bad, and the ugly.  But thank you for that instruction on how to do internet research.

My comment was that until now, most people did not know of, nor care to know, who the junior senator from Vermont was, so maybe that's why he seems like he's not part of the "establishment", even though, like most of Congress since the founding of the country, he's an old white dude who's been there for 30 years. (You know who else is the establishment?  Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon.  But not many people could name him, so i guess he, too, coukd run as "not the estsblishment") Sorry, someone who's been part of the legislative process for decades cannot claim the outsider mantle, especially when that same petson is also campaigning on his resume in Congress.

I'd say Hillary is DC establishment.  But that isn't US establishment -a female lader still isn't the norm in this country.   They both are establishment in some ways.  But to argue that he is not is a joke.

2015
Sanders $73M
Clinton $112M
Trump $12

January
Sander $20M
Clinton $15M

Sanders is killing it February, Clinton hasn't released any numbers, but after Iowa he received $3M in 24hrs and after N Hampshire $5.2M in 18 hours.

Obviously there is a lot of other money that Clinton is receiving via S PACs, but the point is in small donations, Sander is doing better than Clinton and I think that is in some part a barometer of which way people are leaning.

And for what it's worth. the Nurses United PAC isn't "Bernie's" PAC; he isn't associated with it in any way.  

Two links for you to check out, here and here.

[Oh, and I'll just warn you not to take the headline of that second link at face value; you will learn something about Sanders if you read the whole thing]

oversee the execution of Ricky Ray Rector

Rep. James Clyburn, the third-ranking House Democrat and influential South Carolina leader, said in an interview today that he may soon endorse one of the two Democratic presidential contenders after previously pledging to remain neutral.

Clyburn, who did not make a public endorsement ahead of the South Carolina Democratic primary in 2008, said that he is getting pressured to "take a stand" on the 2016 race for the White House.

Clyburn didn't say definitely if he was leaning toward endorsing Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders. He plans to discuss an endorsement this weekend with his close family, who have exerted the most pressure on him, and has ruled out an endorsement before next week, according to a source close to the congressman.

"I have a wife and three daughters, so you figure it out," Clyburn said, laughing. "They are my family, they are my consultants."