User talk:The Unknown Cynic

2008 Financial Crisis edits
Hello there Unknown Cynic. I wanted to say "thanks" for your additions to Congresspedia. However, there are a few small problems. The biggest is that you make several statements that the problems at Fannie Mae led to the 2008 financial crisis, but, unlike your other statements, these have no footnote or support. The degree to which Fannie Mae is responsible for the crisis is a matter of some debate (I have seen it argued that the financial instruments involved in Wall Street would have been brought down sooner or later because they were fundamentally unsound and that the bulk of the defaults were coming not from Fannie Mae-connected loans but from privately administered loans) and, as such, we need some sort of credible, quotable source for those statements. A smaller issue is that while some events at Fannie Mae did trigger some defaults of instruments based on them, it's fairly undisputed that the entire housing market was in a bubble and the billions of dollars in financial instruments based on them would have crashed whenever that bubble popped. As such, while there were certainly problems at Fannie Mae that will likely end up costing taxpayers, I'm somewhat skeptical of the view that Fannie Mae is the root of the crisis. To me it feels a little like saying the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand was the cause of World War I - it certainly set some wheels in motion, but there were more than a few heads of state just looking for an excuse to go to war and, I would argue, war was somewhat inevitable at that point anyway. I have not, however, researched the financial crisis in much depth, so I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

In short, we need some sort of outside, non-ideological source that substantiates the claims about Fannie Mae, and I would also like wording a little more precise in terms of what the problems at Fannie Mae actually resulted in. In the meantime, I removed the unsourced statements and added a bit more detail to your additions to Barney Frank's page, which you can see here. Please let me know on my user talk page what your plans are. Otherwise, because theses edits don't meet our standards for referencing, I'm afraid we'll have to erase them and block your account - I'm sure you can see why enforcing our standards is important to maintain the credibility and accuracy of the wiki. Thank you and please let me know your plans. --Conor Kenny 10:55, 17 December 2008 (EST)