From the Neighborhood E-Mail Chain

Our purple neighborhood has been debating the financial meltdown. Here's my contribution.

I think it is pretty silly to look for a single explanation (or party) responsible for inflating the housing market and the current mess on Wall Street. Who's to blame? Just about everyone. Greenspan, trying to find his way through the post-9/11period, held rates too low for too long and that's the main cause of the bubble. Both parties pursued home ownership as way to promote family and social stability without asking whether low-income families would be able to keep up with no-money-down, adjustable-rate mortgages. Clinton pushed homeownership and so did Bush, if anything, even more aggressively. Who benefited from low rates and loose lending practices? Just about everyone. I know we did. Our house on Capitol Hill tripled in value in three years allowing us to sell and move to the idyll of Northern Virginia where the public schools, fed by massive, bubble-driven increases in property tax revenues, are doing amazing things with special needs children like our son.

And when I look around the neighborhood, it's large, beautiful new houses and renovations as far as the eye can see. Where did the money for that come from? The Bubble.

My point (and I do have one) is that the problem of greed and wishful thinking isn't "out there" (the Republicans, the Democrats, the poor, the rich) it lies with hundreds of millions of people each pursuing what he or she thought was in their own interests and being aided and abetted by both major political parties. We have met the enemy, and he is us.

One final thought: I've been in the public policy biz for over 20 years. The debate on Friday evening was just about the best presidential debate I have ever seen with two serious, earnestly committed candidates of great (if very different) experience. Each, in his own way, was wrestling with how to talk about serious problems and significant differences in philosophy and approach while remaining civil. I think we best honor these two men and the incredible sacrifices they and their families are making on our behalf by trying to do the same. It has been a rough 20 years. Time to learn again how to disagree without being disagreeable with one another.