photo credit: net_efekt
It is no surprise that we didn’t just wake up one morning to find that the country was in a recession, there were mistakes and errors made that lead us to where we are now. Below is a short overview of some of those mistakes that got us where we are today found on DealBook.Blogs.Nytimes.com.
â—Sky high leverage. It went from 12 to 1 in 2004 up to a extreme high of 33 to 1 when the S.E.C. allowed security firms to raise their leverage.
â—Allowing foreclosures to become a huge tsunami in less than a year, while chair people were sounding alarms, this large contributor went un fixed.
â—One of the most fatal errors was the TARPS (troubled asset relief program) mismanagement. $700 billion in bailout money…could have been spent more wisely.
“For this litany of errors, many people in authority owe millions of Americans an apology. Richard A. Clarke, former national security adviser, set a good example when he told the commission investigating the 9/11 attacks that he wanted victims’ families “to know why we failed and what I think we need to do to ensure that nothing like that ever happens again.”
What is your opinion on the major errors that put us where we are today?