I'm watching Senator Robert Menedez talk about forcing banks to accept home long applications with less than 20% down.

How is this guy in the United States Senate? We just had a mortgage meltdown because Congress forced banks to diminish underwriting standards.

Still, a Democratic Senator from New Jersey is saying on a C-Span broadcast that we need to diminish underwriting standards.

Senator Menedez simply doesn't live in the real world, and is concrete proof that the free market did not cause the mortgage meltdown in anyway shape or form.

When Congress gets out of the way the free market says 20% down. That's it, unless you have the unimpeachable credit that justifies a private lender from accepting 10% then you simply have to wait to own a home until you can purchase enough equity in the property you want to borrow tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands to buy.

So, what do you think about this whole "shadow banking sector" that some writers blame for the GFC? You know, loose loan standards, insecure in the case of nationwide default, selling-on the toxic debt to other institutions, etc. They all blame gov't policy as well, but also things like the massive number of Americans who lived well outside their means.

Paul Volcker is President Obama's EconomicCzar
It's too bad that Obama doesn't have enough common sense to listen to the man that Carter and Reagan both listened to, but then again Obama is famous for speeches not common sense.

Great article in Forbes
Private Profits Are Morally Superior To Public Services

Great Quotes from it.
"Markets aren’t perfect because man isn’t."
"Seventy percent of Americans favor free enterprise."

"To hear politicians, you’d think if Washington didn’t shield helpless citizens from corporate depredations many an innocent life would be ruined. But businesses aren’t enemies conniving to exploit hapless workers and extract unwarranted profits. Businesses work feverishly developing products consumers desire."

"We buy something because we believe it worth more than the expense. When we sell our wares or perform services, we clearly think so too. Assuming enterprise is entered freely and measured fairly it is likely that both parties benefit. Otherwise, they would trade or toil elsewhere."

"Politicians may denounce greed, but it’s often those pontificating loudest who most quickly confiscate others’ wealth. Who exemplifies true greed – private parties gaining via free exchange or governments snatching what others produced? There is nothing just about plying envy to swap goodies for votes for which others must pay."

"Where competition does arise, government frequently falters. See the Postal Service."

".... as America’s polity devolves into class warfare and identity politics. America’s race based spoils system rends communities apart by pitting demographic groups into competing fiefdoms bestowing patronage. Unleashing state auspices to plunder your neighbors reflects genteel forms of brigandage. But states can give nothing they don’t also take."

"Entitlement programs distance families and communities as the public purse supplants them as the wellspring of relief. We affix our fates to government instead. Why act neighborly or plan ahead when the state mandates all participate in “insurance” safety-nets. The responsible and industrious are stymied, forced to support the reckless and lazy without any prerequisites they might stipulate if voluntarily underwriting benevolence."

If Solyndra went bankrupt without any government loan the demise of the company wouldn't have made any news because no matter what the socialists and big government advocates try to deny they know the free market works.
It's only when crony socialism like the half billion dollar loan fails that it's news.
Socialists try to justify it so they don't lose credibility, but utterly fail to preserve their credibility, and free market advocates hold it up as empirical evidence of the problems incurred when the free market is circumvented.

Weren't all of these threads supposed to be locked?

Yeah, I think TC may have performed a last minute save right before they went off into the archive.