Santorum blames 2008 mortgage crisis on $4-per-gallon gas

I mean this statement pretty much speaks for itself...This man is bonkers.

During a campaign appearance in Michigan, Santorum said the housing bubble burst in 2008 because people could no longer afford to pay their mortgages because of high gas prices.

"We went into a recession in 2008 because of gasoline prices," Santorum said in Michigan according to Buzzfeed. "The bubble burst in housing because people couldn’t pay their mortgages because of $4 a gallon gasoline."

Santorum then said President Obama actually wants higher gas prices.

"He actually believes this is a good thing for America, I don't," the former Pennsylvania senator added. "We are not here to serve the Earth, but to be stewards of the Earth."

The official government take on the collapse, authored by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, blamed Wall Street banks for taking on excessive risk via subprime mortgages, and government regulators for failing to sniff out the start of the crisis before it threatened the global financial system.

Republican members of that panel dissented from the official report, blaming a global credit bubble and lax government housing policy. But they didn't put the blame on high gas prices, either.

thehill.com...

I am noticing that the difference between Rick Santorum and Rick Perry is that Santorum IS NOT MISPEAKING...He actually believes the crazy things comming out of his mouth.

That is frightening.

reply to post by Indigo5
Wow, I love the fact that this man has no idea what he's talking about, no interest in personal liberty or responsibility, a belief that the government can and in fact SHOULD regulate effectively every aspect of our lives, and pimps Christ while walking in almost complete antithesis to his teachings...

And I'm sure gas prices had nothing to do with Ron Paul predicting the upcoming crisis back in 2003 and prior...unlike Santorum.

reply to post by Indigo5


Well, what do you expect from a fool that thinks the Earth is 6,000 years old.

reply to post by Tw0Sides


Honestly I was more shocked by this statement he made before I did a pre-OP search on ATS and read some of the otehr things he has said recently that are frankly batsh*& crazy.

It is like a republican front-runner phenomena...they suddenly surge to the lead and then start sputing insanity.

reply to post by Indigo5


Oh, that explains it all. And here I thought it was engineered by the people who control inflation, deflation, interest rates and trade in derivatives, knowing that they have no value.... But I guess it's all Iran's fault that our gas prices went up, causing our housing market to crash. We better go bomb the shish out of them now!

The guy's completely delusional.

If he thinks USA President has anything to do with price of gas then he has absolutely no business running for the office.

Gas prices caused the housing bubble? Er, no Mr Santorum. People buying houses that they couldn't afford at the height of the market, getting mortgages that they never should have gotten, then refinancing those homes based on a false market equity value caused the recession.

People bought into the housing market at the absolute worst time, on borrowed money, and the value of their investments collapsed underneath them leaving them owing the balance.

It was the same in 1929, people borrowed money to play the stock market, then were left holding the bag when the rug was pulled out from under them.

ZERO influence from gas prices.

i think santorum's bubble is about to burst soon. he's talking himself into a hole. at first, there was positive response to his increasingly ultra-republican-but-not-really-conservative crazy talk. but now, i think he is going too far for even the most brainwashed sheep, and i predict his popularity ratings within the next few weeks will start to plummet.

the final confrontation (if we get that far without a world war) will be between romney and obama. it doesn't matter who wins, america loses. personally i think obama will win a second term. possibly the last president of the united states as we know it.

The only explanation for this guy is an experiment to see how many idiots would really choose him as their candidate... what a loon.

Obama and his environmental wackos are to blame for the high gas prices.

This is what happens when you demonize the oil industry, drastically reduce offshore drilling, block drilling in ANWAR, and block the Keystone pipeline. Throw in millions of dollars to a now bankrupt solar company (Solyndra) and massive incentives to a failed automobile (Chevy Volt) and there is no doubt Obama wants to see gasoline sky high.

High gas prices means higher prices on every product that needs to be transported to the marketplace. This puts a burden on American families, and I'm sure the burden was a small part of the mortgage crisis.

I would rather have Santorum out there realizing consequences to needless high gas prices, than Obama purposely driving them up.

Santorum is certainly not the strongest possible candidate, and I really understand not liking him, but aren't ATSers supposed to be open to new ideas, outside the box thinking?

I went to the Buzzfeed article to which the source OP article links. www.buzzfeed.com... It says this:

UPDATE: Kevin Hassett, of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, says this may not be as crazy as it sounds:

This statement has a certain logic to it. Oil prices climbed, the economy weakened, the housing market started south, then everything unraveled. It is possible that a big reduction in oil prices would have been enough to stave off a recession. Jim Hamilton at UCSD is the world's leading expert on this, and he investigated it closely and found that the empirical case for oil causing the whole mess was surprisingly strong.

I went to Hassett's article, Oil and Housing? Here's the summary:

Past oil price spikes associated with Middle East conflicts and OPEC embargos were each followed by a global economic recession. This column argues that the onset of the current economic downturn of is also partly attributable to a sharp increase in the price of oil. Moreover, the interaction of high oil prices and housing problems contributed to the severity of the downturn.

I've seen ATSers get the content of an article wrong in their OPs much more drastically than Santorum did here.

Originally posted by Carseller4
Obama and his environmental wackos are to blame for the high gas prices.

This is what happens when you demonize the oil industry, drastically reduce offshore drilling, block drilling in ANWAR, and block the Keystone pipeline.

Silly rabbit...you do know the topic of the OP? Santorum blaming the housing bubble collapse on gas prices?

Assuming you are confused I will simply point out that US oil production is the highest it has been since 2003...strange that a Democrat President is overseeing more Domestic Oil production than GW did during the majority of his term?

Barrels produced, going back to 2003:

2003: 2,073,453,000
2004: 1,983,302,000
2005: 1,890,106,000
2006: 1,862,259,000
2007: 1,848,450,000
2008: 1,811,817,000
2009: 1,956,596,000
2010: 2,011,856,000

See...Pres. Obama actually explains his strategy clearly...a multi-faceted approach to reducing our dependance on foriegn oil. Increase domestic production...while at the same time pushing alternative energy to break the cycle.

It is just inconvenient that the facts dispute conservative rhetoric which would like to conveniently cast him as Anti-Domestic energy production...he is not. He is looking to end our crack-daddy relationship with the volitile middle east...and that means BOTH upping domestic production while at the same time racing toward an alternative.

...Now can we return to the actual subject of the OP?

Originally posted by charles1952
Santorum is certainly not the strongest possible candidate, and I really understand not liking him, but aren't ATSers supposed to be open to new ideas, outside the box thinking?

I went to the Buzzfeed article to which the source OP article links. www.buzzfeed.com... It says this:

UPDATE: Kevin Hassett, of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, says this may not be as crazy as it sounds:.

I've seen ATSers get the content of an article wrong in their OPs much more drastically than Santorum did here.

I appreciate open minded thinking, but one conservative commentator supporting santorum vs. the entire financial community and analyst community...both conservative and democrat...does not make for facts.

I heard a panel of analysts discuss gas prices and Newt's recent pitch of promising $2.50 gas if he is elected...

They explained that the average American family would save around $50 dollars per month at $2.50 a dollar gas compared to peak prices. $50 dollars a month is nice, but it is not enough to alter a national economy, nor cause a near economic collapse, nor save an economy from recession.

Not a single conservative on the panel tasked with examining the crisis believes that gas prices were a factor.

Santorum, like Palin, Bachmann and other realty challenged, arrogant, wannabe leaders continually ask us to ignore facts and just think less, rather than admit they said something dumb. It has to be one of the most frightening qualities I see with some of the GOP nominees.

It's one thing to ask for support...it's another to ask us to be stupid.

Boy, either Santorum either hasn't got a clue or he's a very uncreative deceiver. Can't these politicians get new material for a change? We need some new Fantasy writers for the coming years in the Political dept.

He has it backwards the crisis is what caused $4/per gallon gas. Because it was the very same guys that were packaging garbage housing investments using the commodities markets to hedge the losses they knew were coming. Just like they are overinflating the prices right now, The housing market was pushed because economically it was the only market with any real value still producing and for a time covering all the other losses.

Well obviously Santorum is wrong. Obviously God rose the prices of gas because it was his will.

I'm sure he said nothing about him giving his endorsement to you in the election though.

Reading up the daily political news gets me going. lol.