Nothing sinister about subprime mortgages

PETER KENNEDY suggests that subprime mortgages were part of an intricate web of deceit by the Bush administration to support the present war in Iraq (Letters, Sept 4).

The US property bubble inflated the same way as the Irish bubble until recently. Where ours is deflating, though, the US bubble burst.

As property prices rose, US lending institutions offered subprime mortgages, as ours have offered 100% mortgages, in order to stay in business. That’s capitalism.

Unlike our Government, the Bush administration does not interfere in private business as capitalism is a self-regulating and self-correcting system.

How you can equate one with the other is beyond me.

As for our house-buying frenzy, far from ignoring the passage of US troops to and from the Middle East, has it not occurred that some of us don’t have a problem with this or, indeed, support it?

Niall Johnson

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