Difficult Facts About the Housing Crisis

This article points out some facts that are "difficult" to those who (like the author and myself) accepted the arguments that the housing crisis occurred because of the community reinvestment act (CRA) or the actions of regulators on Fannie and Freddie. Those facts are that the housing bubble occurred simultaneously in many nations outside of the US, where neither the CRA nor Fannie and Freddie had substantial effect.

Two causes that still seem like possibilities are:

1. The long period of low interests rates enacted by the fed. This conceivably could have affected foreign countries as well, given how much foreign money is invested in the US.
2. Irrational exuberance or other psychological factors.

Of course, having just seen other perfectly reasonable explanations proven false, some humility about our power to find the truth through reason (in absence of all the facts) is certainly in order.