Newt Gingrich on The Ropes — GOP Lies About Housing Debate

Eventually trillions of dollars were in play, funny money leveraged to the point of absurdity, with Fed Chairman (and infamous Ayn Rand disciple) Alan Greenspan – and all other free market enthusiasts – thwarting any attempt to regulate the increasingly out-of-control leviathan.

Everything collapsed. The huckstering of easy loans at the ground level caused a frenzy in the housing market, pushing prices up and up. When the bubble burst, we could see what had happened: Unfettered capitalism did what it always does – it made a few people very rich and bollixed it up for the rest of it.

We remember wondering how the right wing would explain such a mess. We were quite certain they wouldn’t acknowledge that they had been so obviously wrong about the ability of unchecked, laissez-faire capitalism to produce the greatest good for the greatest number. We recall hearing the first of their salvoes, then what became their sole talking point on the issue: Fannie and Freddie. Fannie and Freddie. They found a couple agencies involved in the mortgage mess with government ties, and tried to pin the whole debacle on them. They did what Republicans did best: lie to their advantage, magnify their lie a thousand-fold through their hundreds of right wing media outlets (which scream incessantly of a “liberal media” HA), and worked to warp reality to fit their needs. (We are reminded of the Karl Rove dictum…Reality Is What We Say It Is….)

And what are those needs? What they’ve always been. To allow an unchecked capitalism to continue to produce wealth for the very few, at the very top, now and forever, amen.