economic crisis odds and ends
Sara Robinson does a far more thorough rebuttal of the Right's blame-the-Community-Reinvestment-Act spin than the one I cobbled together a few days ago; I highly recommend it. (The Federal Reserve's information on the CRA is here.)
Robert Kuttner's article "The Bubble Economy" from American Prospect last year largely avoids partisan rancor while still identifying deregulation as the culprit.
The NYT article "The Reckoning" looks at the SEC's 2004 loosening of capital requirements for the brokerage units of large investment banks. (Hmmm...deregulation again?)
For a lighter take on things, the stick-figure slideshow "The Subprime Primer" is a foul-mouthed free-for-all that--unfortunately--isn't nearly as funny as it was earlier this year.