Deregulation

caused the crisis

Despite the assertions to the contrary, deregulation did lead to the current economic crisis.

Regulation ramped up after the Great Depression, only to be slowly chipped away at since then, with a sledgehammer taken to it starting with Reagan. This led directly to the S&L fiasco, the dot-com bubble and the recent mortgage and banking bubble. The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) did not cause it; only a fraction of the risky loans were part of this, and CRA loan activity decreased as risky loan activity increased.

Low interest rates and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were also not the main causes of the crisis. By definition, a subprime loan is a loan that Fannie and Freddie cannot cover.

The crisis was caused by greed and over-optimism, allowed to go unchecked due to deregulation of the banking and insurance industries and a lack of oversight by regulators. Some people will drive as fast as they please if they know that they won’t get a ticket.

Roger Burton,

unincorporated Bothell

More bang

for the buck?

Given our societal push for growth, and our politicians maximizing that growth through luring ever-more people to this country and region, how long will the “more bang for buck” (“New northbound lane driving onto I-405 in Bothell,” March 25) comment by Denice Cieri of WSDOT last? A few months? A few years?

Richard Pelto, Kenmore

A big thanks

to our friends

Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood makes a comeback.

Everyone has been having a really tough time because of this bad economy, my family included. We went from feeling totally safe to the scare of losing everything in what felt like a matter of minutes. In the same month, my dad lost his job and my mom had to go in for surgery. I’m very thankful to say that the surgery wasn’t serious, still it had to happen. The surgery meant that my mom would have to be off work for up to a month. That’s a month with one less person to drive the kids around, make dinner and nobody with a job.

I can honestly say that we would have fallen apart had it not been for our amazing friends and family. Keely Garcia, my close friend’s mom, organized a plan with others in our neighborhood so that practically every night of the week we were getting homemade meals brought to our doorstep.

I understand that this world is nowhere near perfect, but there is proof every day that the whole world is filled with amazing good-hearted people.

Alyssa Henninger