President Ronald Reagan

In regards to the current financial crisis described by many as the worst in multiple generations, billionaire investor George Soros stated here:

The cause of the current troubles dates back to 1980, when U.S. President Ronald Reagan and U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher came to pwoer. It was during this time that borrowing ballooned and regulation of banks and financial markets became less stringent. These leaders believed that markets are self-correcting, meaning that it prices get out of whack, they will eventually revert to historical norms. Instead, this laissez-faire attitude created the current housing bubble, which in turn led to the seizing up of crdeit markets...

Soros further opines elsewhere:

...regulations have been progressively relaxed until they have practically disappeared.

December, 1982--Garn - St Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982 enacted. This Reagan Administration initiative is designed to complete the process of giving expanded powers to federally chartered S&Ls and enables them to diversify their activities with the view of increasing profits. Major provisions include: elimination of deposit interest rate ceilings; elimination of the previous statutory limit on loan to value ratio; and expansion of the asset powers of federal S&Ls by permitting up to 40% of assets in commercial mortgages, up to 30% of assets in consumer loans, up to 10% of assets in commercial loans, and up to 10% of assets in commercial leases.

• Deregulation practically eliminated the distinction between commercial and savings banks.
• Deregulation caused a rapid growth of savings banks and S&L's that now made all types of non homeowner related loans. Now that S%L's could tap into the huge profit centers of commercial real estate investments and credit card issuing many entrepreneurs looked to the loosely regulated S&L's as a profit making center.
• As the eighties wore on the economy appeared to grow. Interest rates continued to go up as well as real estate speculation. The real estate market was in what is known as a "boom" mode. Many S&L's took advantage of the lack of supervision and regulations to make highly speculative investments, in many cases loaning more money then they really should.
• When the real estate market crashed, and it did so in dramatic fashion, the S&L's were crushed. They now owned properties that they had paid enormous amounts of money for but weren't worth a fraction of what they paid. Many went bankrupt, losing their depositors money. This was known as the S&L Crisis.
• In 1980 the US had 4,600 thrifts, by 1988 mergers and bankruptcies left 3000. By the mid 1990's less than 2000 survived.

In less then 7 years after the initiation of this major banking deregulation, in February of 1989, President Bush (the first of course) unveiled the S&L bailout plan. As the Help Center puts it;

The S&L crisis cost about 600 Billion dollars in "bailouts." This is 1500 dollars from every man woman and child in the US.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/71265-the-credit-bubble-deregulation-gone-wild




Deja Vu