While Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama propose government help for homeowners facing foreclosure, John McCain offered some small-government tough love yesterday in his first major speech on the economy after returning from a tour abroad. The presumptive Republican nominee, in a speech in Santa Ana, Calif., attributed the housing and credit crisis to a "bubble" caused by "rampant speculation" and created by lenders who lowered their standards, by Americans who bought homes they couldn't afford, and by financial players who invested in complex securities that were not transparent.

read full blog boston.com