If you were old enough to remember the 2000 election, how similar is this compared to 2020? A lot of people are drawing comparisons between these two elections. I'm a Zoomer so I wasn't old enough to experience it. It is to my understanding that the msm incorrectly announced Gore to be the winner. Of course the circumstances are much different in 2020 but was the media talking about Gore's transition team like they are with Biden? Were they talking about who Gore's cabinet appointees were going to be? Were they talking about stupid shit like his dogs being the newest pets to the White House? Or was Gore preoccupied with court the whole time? Was everyone calling him "President-Elect?" Ultimately, I believe that Trump will prevail but I am just curious if the msm was playing the same games back then too. I tried to research this before posting but I can't find any answers.
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Good question. Perhaps the single biggest thing Bush did to not prevent financial bubble was appoint Chris Cox as SEC Chairman. Cox allowed banks and brokerages to exceed the leverage limits because - like the reasoning behind repealing Glass-Stegal (the single biggest cause of the crisis) - they thought they were now "sophisticated enough" with computer algorithms, complex financial instruments / hedges and blah blah blah that it would be "fiiiiiiine".
All that - along with credit default swaps and Feddie Mac going full retard - was a perfect storm. Would have a different SEC guy avoided the worst of it? Maybe. However, the forces that crested in 2008-09 started their buildup in the 90's under Clinton and Barney Frank. I am and have always been partisan, but I think I can objectively say that the Financial Crisis was a joint effort with plenty of blame to go around. It was a true cautionary tale of "it will be different this time" - as John Templeton famously said of the most dangerous words you will ever hear in investing...
Thanks for the thorough analysis. If Biden gets in and increases taxes in the middle of the recession we are just starting to recover from, he will make Bush and Clinton's economic screw ups look like child's play.