Just about everyone in the financial services sector has been blamed for the credit famine that has almost brought the entire world to its knees. But who really is to blame?

Over at Syntagma, John Evans lays the “seed culpability” on President Carter and President Clinton for forcing banks to lend to people who could never afford the houses they bought.

After much digging around, we can report that, contrary to many attempts to blame investment bankers, as well as retail banks and their customers for the financial fiasco, real seed culpability lies with politicians of the left interfering in the workings of what are sometimes laughingly called “free markets”.

Here’s the timeline:

1977. President Carter passed the Community Reinvestment Act …

Read the whole article here.

Deflation is now accepted as the biggest threat to Western economies, especially hugely indebted nations, like the U.S. and Britain.

Inflation, which was recently the major enemy, has swiftly retreated, as widely predicted.

Many experts are belatedly waking up to the gravity of the situation. In the UK, former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Ken Clarke, has dismissed comparisons with the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, likening current conditions explicitly with 1929/30.

Normally cautious Bank of England Governor, Mervyn King, forecasts a 2 percent contraction in the British economy next year, with interest rates falling rapidly to nought percent for the first time in history.

Deflation is now the enemy we must all factor in to our expectations in the near-to-medium terms, even in the dependably buoyant American economy. The Japanese “lost decade” of the 1990s may be set to play out across the world.

Why then is deflation necessarily worse than inflation?

In an era of massive indebtedness, both private and public, deflation increases the burden. As incomes decline, debts remain the same — at levels signed for in better times. It’s the exact opposite of the apparent wealth created during periods of rapidly rising house prices.

Professor Peter Spencer of York University says, “It is going to be absolute murder in Britain if inflation turns negative. The big difference with past episodes is that we are now much more heavily indebted. Few people owned their own houses in 1930s. Debts were miniscule.”

Another symptom of deflation is that consumers wait for lower prices before shopping, causing job-losses in Main Street and yet more bad economic news.

So what can be done either to pre-empt or cure the curse of falling prices across the board?

Curiously, Keynesianism which, in its misunderstood version is disastrous in normal times, does hold out some hope in depressive conditions. Expect central banks to start printing money soon and dropping it from helicopters, if they haven’t started already. Want to buy some rising stock? Buy helicopter shares. [This is not financial advice.]

If you’re one of those noble souls who saved assiduously during the asset bubbles, you will just have to stand by and watch the profligate oafs who caused the problem clean up, while your own responsible hoard of value drains away.

It’s just not fair, but it will probably have to happen “for the greater good”.

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In the U.S. and Britain a recession is defined as when the data records two consecutive quarters of negative growth. So we can only call it a recession when we’re six months in — and then it’s usually already over.

It’s said that this definition was deliberately put about by advisers to President Johnson in the 1960s to allow him wriggle room when events were not neat and symmetrical — which is the the most likely case.

For example, if within a six-month period one month bucks the trend and shows a slight positive number, it can’t be a recession no matter how bad conditions are across the economy. And the quarters down have to synch with the “official” quarters from January through December. Different combinations of months don’t count apparently, even though they could skew the result.

However, we know that because of population and productivity growth, the U.S. needs to expand by about 2.5pc just to keep unemployment from rising.

We should forget the official definition because even flat growth is negative for the economy and almost everybody in it, and that means less than 2.5pc.

Everything points to conditions being much worse than that right now.

We could just as easily define it as six months of high gold prices — just like the present.

Ronald Reagan had a stab with, “A recession is when your neighbor loses his job.”

Ominously he added, “A depression is when you lose your’s.”

Syntagma Media is now relaunching Moneyizor.com as a tracker of the hottest topic of the moment in U.S financial circles : macroeconomics. Think “credit crunch”, “global financial meltdown”, “economy falling off a cliff”, “new Great Depression”, and your adrenalin may just kick in.

The financial news from Wall Street and Main Street has been so alarming since last summer, Moneyizor has been changed from a magazine-type portal to become a vehicle for this crucial topic.

“On the day when the UK’s biggest mortgage lender, the Halifax, reported a staggering 2.5pc drop in house prices in March alone, the IMF warns governments, central banks and regulators that they now face a test of their mettle unique in modern times.”

Make sure you keep up to date on Credit Crunch technicalities with Moneyizor.