
I just finished radio taping a segment for the John Bachelor Show on ABC Radio (a national show), with a person I really respect, Ms. Diane Brady, and dealing with economic policy, my role as the new chairman of the Subcommittee on the Underserved and Community Empowerment for President Obama and the US President's Advisory Council on Financial Capability.
We covered, amongst other things, my view on what's coming out of Washington, DC these days, and specifically the view that this crisis was somehow created by poor people, and you have to punish the poor to get them to take charge of thier lives.
I said a lot of what I believe on the show, which will air later tonight, but here are a couple additional points of focus:
- This crisis was NOT created by poor people. The fact is that more middle class white men received subprime loans that kicked off the global econoic crisis, than all poor people combined in the United States. Furthermore, poor people do not have 20 trillion dollars to lose, which is how much wealth evaporated in this crisis in the U.S. alone. This was and remains a middle class crisis. Well educated people for the most part, who bought too much house, and asked the wrong questions; asking what the payment was when they purchased a home, and not what the interest rate was.