Dodd-Frank, the real culprit according to Robert Tracinski of TIA Daily

 In this article Tracinski blames the Dodd-Frank financial reform act for the uncertainty and confusion in financial quarters that has impeded and virtually stopped the flow of credit necessary for a real recovery to begin.  Tracinski offers no solutions to the implosion on Wall Street that led to our current dilemma but suggests that the Dodd-Frank bill is simply making things worse inasmuch as it blames the financial collapse on venal bankers and proposes bureaucratic means of controlling them in the future.  It is this expansion of the administrative state that democrats so love that keeps the recovery at bay since the rules and regulations required by the new law have yet to be written and agree upon by regulators.  Tracinski sees us as about half way through this process.  But even so once the process is completed, things are not likely to get any better because the rules (already in place in some cases) are so vague as to continue to lead to uncertainty and therefore inaction by the banks to begin extending credit more freely once again.  In Tracinski's view once again the political class has succeeded in shifting the blame for the crises to the private sector and is proceeding to make things worse by further restricting the financial industry from doing its job.  All in all this is a fairly lucid explanation of what's happening now without shedding much light on what would be effective to prevent another such crises in the future short of keeping the government from making things worse, as it always manages to do.

The latest "meltdown" explanation

Mona Charon's review here of "Reckless Endangerment" by Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner, both NYT reporters, is the latest in a number of books on the cause of the 2007 financial meltdown.  Based on most of the other books out there, Mona and Joshua have got it about right:  the principal cause of the "meltdown" was the politicization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by the Democrat Party over a period of time dating back to the '60's.  Jim Johnson, a democrat political operative for many decades, and all those like Frank Raines, Jamie Gorelick and their supporters in the Congress, including Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and of course Barak Obama. Mona points out the great effort on the part of the MSM to rewrite history in order to cover for these liberals now on going through all their outlets.  Their main distortion is the notion that the greedy Wall Street bankers were the primary cause, entirely overlooking the fact these "greedy" types were merely providing the means to carry out the policies of the political class writing the laws that encouraged and enabled the whole scheme to become reality in the first place.  At this point in time no amount of dissembling by the water carriers for the democrats can cover up this scandal.

Gerrymandering --the bane of democracy

There is little doubt that the single biggest problem contributing to the dysfunctional US Congress is the practice of gerrymandering.  This particular anti democratic political shenanigan is practiced by members of both US political parties and is designed to accomplish exactly what it in fact does which is to assure incumbent members of Congress their respective seats.  The practice is the primary reason we have representatives like Maxine Waters and Sheila Lee, two of the more racists members of the Congressional Black Caucus CBC), itself a racist group within Congress committed to furthering the interests of blacks before the interests of the country.  Sheila Lee, BTW, is a graduate of Yale College.  Nice. Makes a grad proud. A recent analysis pointed out that in any normal House vote, typically 80% of the races are considered safe for the incumbent.  Such is the effect of gerrymandering.  Gerrymandering does more to divide the country along racial lines that any of the other unconstitutional and divisive programs like Affirmative Action and the now infamous Community Redevelopment Act.  The latter program in its various permutations over the years was largely responsible for the sub prime mortgage fiasco which led to the near collapse of the entire financial system in the US. There have been several books on this subject, notably ones by Thomas Sowell and Peter Schweitzer that clearly catalogue and explain how this political event, led by the Black Caucus and other liberal politicians, (Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Barak Obama, Cuomo and others) mostly in the Carter and Clinton administrations, brought all this about.  If enough people read these books and others and came to understand how it al happened we might just be able to make a few course corrections, eliminate all the racist, divisive government programs including gerrymandering, and return to a functioning democracy true to the principles of the founding fathers and the constitution.  Not in my lifetime.  Here is a proposal to reform the current gerrymandering system.