It doesn’t really matter the subject (irresponsible home building/buying in California, in this case) , Harold Meyerson can always be counted on to blame the wrong person:
Half a century ago, Californians understood what it took to create a great state. Taxpayers funded the nation’s best highway network, water system and public universities. The state’s population exploded in the greatest home-construction boom in history, under a system of mortgages that the federal government tightly regulated. A sustainable California will require a return to the policies of public investment and financial regulation that built the postwar paradise between the Sierras and the sea.
In other words, Californians have tried that whole free-market thing, but it didn’t work out. It’s about time they started instituting just a little government control over something, rather than the chaos currently permitted by California’s lax control over the lives of its citizens.