The Colvin Report: Whose To Blame In The Housing Crisis?

I was watching the news this morning when Howard Dean started to attack McCain's plan for dealing with the housing crisis on the basis that McCain said that the ultimate source of the problem rests on the individuals who took out loans they couldn't afford.

I am not going to address the plan itself or what sort of regulation is needed to prevent this from occuring in the future, but I want to address Howard Dean's response.

According to Dean, there is no need for individual accountability. He believes the government should bail people out and the problem will be solved.

However, the source of the problem has to be recognized and accounted for, it cannot be ignored.

The fact of the matter is that many of these home owners took out loans with variable interest rates, knowing the interest rates were at an all time low and would soon rise. They chose these variable interest rates because they could not afford the payments on the loan at the fixed rate. These were people that would not have been able to afford to buy a house without the low interest rates and the banks relaxed credit policies.

Yes, that is right, these people took out loans when interest rates were at historic lows, while there was a 100% possibility of interest rates rising and then these same people were baffled when they couldn't make payments at the higher interest rates.

Maybe banks should have looked deeper into the candidates reported income and ability to repay when the interest rates fluctuated, but the underlying problem is accountability. These individuals are ultimately the ones who over-stretched their finances and in some cases lied to banks.

To suggest it is somehow improper to ask individuals to be accountable for their decisions is unreasonable. Battle over a solution, but don't blame McCain for stating the obvious reality.

Accountability, an interesting concept.