Yesterday, we recapped each presidential candidate’s take on this week’s financial meltdown.  Senators Barack Obama and John McCain each cited different reasons why companies like Lehman Brothers and AIG were in dire financial straits.  Obama blamed President George W. Bush’s economic policies, while McCain blamed Wall Street corruption.  Each individual also proposed different plans for reversing the current financial turmoil.

However, simply because two Presidential candidates offer compelling reasons for why the U.S. economy is in its current state doesn’t mean they’re right.

Today’s Investor’s Business Daily places the blame for today’s financial mess, in large part, on President Bill Clinton. 

It “was the Clinton administration,” states the article, ”obsessed with multiculturalism, that dictated where mortgage lenders could lend, and originally helped create the market for the high-risk subprime loans now infecting like a retrovirus the balance sheets of many of Wall Street’s most revered institutions.” 

Specifically, “[t]ough new regulations forced lenders into high-risk areas where they had no choice but to lower lending standards to make the loans that sound business practices had previously guarded against making.  It was either that or face stiff government penalties.”

In light of this unique take on the current financial disaster on Wall Street, who do you agree with?  Do you think it was, indeed, Bill Clinton who instigated this mess with government over-regulation, which, in turn, undermined the free markets?  Or do you think it was the “failed Bush policies,” as cited by Obama?  If neither of those reasons, would you, like McCain, blame corruption on Wall Street? 

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