Bloomberg to Protesters: Congress, Not Banks, to Blame for Mortgage Crisis Read more

[healthmyths]

"It was not the banks that created the mortgage crisis. It was, plain and simple, Congress

Read more: Bloomberg To Protesters: Congress, Not Banks, To Blame For Mortgage Crisis | Fox News

Simple chronology for ALL you who still don't get it!!!

A) 1995 Obama/ACORN threaten Citibank occupy offices for 3 days to force subprime loans to unqualified people!
B) Banks FORCED to make bad loans confronted by FDIC regarding toxic loans forced BANKS to go to Fannie /Freddie Backed by Full faith and credit of Federal govt.!
C) Fannie/Freddie protected by Democrat Congress/Frank/Dodd package loans and resell to investors who BUY because investors know:
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have an ``effective'' federal guarantee, not the
"full faith and credit'' of the U.S. government, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director James Lockhart said after the hearing. That does give them effectively a guarantee of the U.S. government.''
Lockhart's Fannie, Freddie Guarantee Remarks Stir Up Confusion - Bloomberg
So the bubble burst WHEN and again evidently MOST of you don't know this:
Economic Terrorist Attack of 9/18/2008 happened!!!

"By 2pm that afternoon, $5.5 trillion would have been drawn out of the
money market system of the U.S., would have collapsed the entire
economy of the U.S., and within 24 hours the world economy would have
collapsed. It would have been the end of our economic system and our
political system as we know it."
Zero Hedge: How The World Almost Came To An End At 2PM On September 18

 

[healthmyths]

So Bloomberg says the Congress forcing bad mortgages to get votes caused the economic collapse!

 

[Teals_Of_Wonder]

I didn't know the Tea Party over saw Fanny and Freddie back in 1995.

 

[Vaard]

hmmm... forgot the american dream act of 2003 where republicans were taking taxpayer money and giving it to people with bad credit for loans on houses......

not to mention the bush admin leaning on feddie and fannie to increase minority home ownership at any cost........

the crash started when arms started kicking in and people could no longer afford their mortgages......


funny how freddie and fannie are blamed on frank and dodd during a republican controlled congress and dems could not even hold meetings during "the hammer" years.......

a republican congress....

a republican presidency......

and who do republicans blame? dems.......

 

[Remodeling Maidiac]

hmmm... forgot the american dream act of 2003 where republicans were taking taxpayer money and giving it to people with bad credit for loans on houses......

not to mention the bush admin leaning on feddie and fannie to increase minority home ownership at any cost........

the crash started when arms started kicking in and people could no longer afford their mortgages......


funny how freddie and fannie are blamed on frank and dodd during a republican controlled congress and dems could not even hold meetings during "the hammer" years.......

a republican congress....

a republican presidency......

and who do republicans blame? dems.......

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPSDnGMzIdo&feature=youtube_gdata_player]Democrats were WARNED of Financial crisis and did NOTHING - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Vaard]

hmmm... forgot the american dream act of 2003 where republicans were taking taxpayer money and giving it to people with bad credit for loans on houses......

not to mention the bush admin leaning on feddie and fannie to increase minority home ownership at any cost........

the crash started when arms started kicking in and people could no longer afford their mortgages......


funny how freddie and fannie are blamed on frank and dodd during a republican controlled congress and dems could not even hold meetings during "the hammer" years.......

a republican congress....

a republican presidency......

and who do republicans blame? dems.......

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPSDnGMzIdo&feature=youtube_gdata_player]Democrats were WARNED of Financial crisis and did NOTHING - YouTube[/ame]

2003 (the year of your clip)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/108th_United_States_Congress
108th congress:

Senate President: Dick Cheney (R)
Senate Pres. pro tem: Ted Stevens (R)
House Speaker: Dennis Hastert (R)
Members: 100 Senators
435 Representatives
5 Non-voting members
Senate Majority: Republican Party
House Majority: Republican Party


the same year where a republican sponosored bill with 9 republican consponsores signed by a republican president that gave taxpayer money to people with bad credit for down payments on houses they could not afford.........


like i said, a republican controlled congress where dems were not even allowed to hold meeting to even consider introducing a bill to committee.......


and who do repubs blame? dems........

 

[Teals_Of_Wonder]

Just because some people were making 20-25K a year doesn't mean they had to buy a home/no questions asked for $250,000. I don't think any of those who bought these expensive homes had any money left over to pay their taxes along with at least two-years income set aside in the event of an emergency. They all lived pay-check to pay-check, and when they lost their jobs during the Obama years,,,many of them lost their homes and screwed all of us who managed our money properly !!! in other words,,,about 10% of Americans screwed it up for all of us!!!

 

[JakeStarkey]

Corporatists in cooperation with Congressmen (this is American fascism in action) worked together to enrich themselves at America's expense. Bloomberg ignores his side's culpability, but that is not surprising.

 

[Teals_Of_Wonder]

The Mortgage Crisis Was Created By Greedy Americans who didn't wanna work hard for 2/3 years to save up for a home. They just wanted homes given to them,,,no money down,,just move in and worry about paying for the home later. right>? thats what liberals want. ! dont wanna work,,,just wanted money handed to them.

 

[JakeStarkey]

oh, wah! tears, just go jerk off to one side of the story.

 

[Seawytch]

Bloomberg is lying.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Bloomberg is lying.

No, Sandwich....Mayor Bloomberg is a dyed-in-the-wool Liberal, and hardly a 'profile in courage.'

That is why his admission is so amazing.

What is not amazing is how clueless you are...So I'll help you out by suggesting a book which illuminates your lapses in understanding:

Well...here it is! Just published:
"‘Reckless Endangerment’ by Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner

1. 'In “Reckless Endangerment,” Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner argue that cozy connections between government and the financial industry were the primary cause of the financial crisis. In a series of clearly written narratives with many names, dates and figures, they show that government officials took actions that benefited well-connected individuals, who in turn helped the government officials. This mutual support system thwarted good economic policies and encouraged reckless ones. It thereby brought on the crisis, sending the economy into a tailspin.'
http://www.washingtonpost.com/enter...-joshua-rosner/2011/05/11/AGs4cqCH_story.html

2. The villains? An unholy alliance between Wall Street, the Democratic establishment, community organizing groups like ACORN and La Raza, and politicians like Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi and Henry Cisneros. (Frank got a cushy job for a lover, Pelosi got a job and layoff protection for a son, Cisneros apparently got a license to mint money bilking Mexican-Americans of their life savings in cheesy housing developments.)

3...., the American dream didn’t die of old age; it was murdered and most of the fingerprints on the corpse come from Democratic insiders. Democratic power brokers stoked the housing bubble and turned a blind eye to the increasingly rampant corruption and incompetence at Fannie Mae and the associated predatory lenders who sheltered under its umbrella; core Democratic ideas may well be at fault.

4. Politically, this story is a killer app for the GOP. It demonizes Dems, lends itself to attack ads, divides Democrats between their Wall Street and union bases, and combines GOP hate figures in ways calculated to unify the GOP and heighten the intensity of the faithful. The story illustrates everything the Tea Party thinks about the corrupt Washington establishment and the evils of big government. It demonstrates the limits on the ability of government programs to help the poor.

10. ...if the GOP plays its cards right, Fanniegate could push this country into a new political era."
Fanniegate: Gamechanger For The GOP? | Via Meadia

 

[JakeStarkey]

#2 above ignore the fact that the GOP controlled Congress from Jan 1995 to Jan 2007.

#4 will result in the Dems smashing the GOP allegations with the facts.

 

[PoliticalChic]

#2 above ignore the fact that the GOP controlled Congress from Jan 1995 to Jan 2007.

#4 will result in the Dems smashing the GOP allegations with the facts.

Bury your head in the sand much, Jakey?

The problem is government providing treasure and gifts beyond opportunity.

When FDR changed equality before the law to equality of result, see his Second Bill of Rights speech, he opened the flood gates.

He established the GSE's in 1938, starting with Fannie Mae.

See how often Democrat Santa Claus philosophy rears it's inopportune head in the following:

a. Congress passed a bill in 1975 requiring banks to provide the government with information on their lending activities in poor urban areas. Two years later, it passed the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), which gave regulators the power to deny banks the right to expand if they didn’t lend sufficiently in those neighborhoods. In 1979 the FDIC used the CRA to block a move by the Greater NY Savings Bank for not enough lending.

b. In 1986, when the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (Acorn) threatened to oppose an acquisition by a southern bank, Louisiana Bancshares, until it agreed to new “flexible credit and underwriting standards” for minority borrowers—for example, counting public assistance and food stamps as income.

c. In 1987, Acorn led a coalition of advocacy groups calling for industry-wide changes in lending standards. Among the demanded reforms were the easing of minimum down-payment requirements and of the requirement that borrowers have enough cash at a closing to cover two to three months of mortgage payments (research had shown that lack of money in hand was a big reason some mortgages failed quickly).

d. ACORN then attacked Fannie Mae, the giant quasi-government agency that bought loans from banks in order to allow them to make new loans. Its underwriters were “strictly by-the-book interpreters” of lending standards and turned down purchases of unconventional loans, charged Acorn. The pressure eventually paid off. In 1992, Congress passed legislation requiring Fannie Mae and the similar Freddie Mac to devote 30 percent of their loan purchases to mortgages for low- and moderate-income borrowers.

e. Clinton Administration housing secretary, Henry Cisneros, declared that he would expand homeownership among lower- and lower-middle-income renters. His strategy: pushing for no-down-payment loans; expanding the size of mortgages that the government would insure against losses; and using the CRA and other lending laws to direct more private money into low-income programs.

f. Shortly after Cisneros announced his plan, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac agreed to begin buying loans under new, looser guidelines. Freddie Mac, for instance, started approving low-income buyers with bad credit histories or none at all, so long as they were current on rent and utilities payments. Freddie Mac also said that it would begin counting income from seasonal jobs and public assistance toward its income minimum, despite the FHA disaster of the sixties.

g. Freddie Mac began an “alternative qualifying” program with the Sears Mortgage Corporation that let a borrower qualify for a loan with a monthly payment as high as 50 percent of his income, at a time when most private mortgage companies wouldn’t exceed 33 percent. The program also allowed borrowers with bad credit to get mortgages if they took credit-counseling classes administered by Acorn and other nonprofits. Subsequent research would show that such classes have little impact on default rates.

h. Pressuring nonbank lenders to make more loans to poor minorities didn’t stop with Sears. If it didn’t happen, Clinton officials warned, they’d seek to extend CRA regulations to all mortgage makers. In Congress, Representative Maxine Waters called financial firms not covered by the CRA “among the most egregious redliners.”

i. Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) shocked the financial world by signing a 1994 agreement with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), pledging to increase lending to minorities and join in new efforts to rewrite lending standards. The first MBA member to sign up: Countrywide Financial, the mortgage firm that would be at the core of the subprime meltdown.

j. A 1998 sales pitch by a Bear Stearns managing director advised banks to begin packaging their loans to low-income borrowers into securities that the firm could sell. Forget traditional underwriting standards when considering these loans, the director advised. For a low-income borrower, he continued in all-too-familiar terms, owning a home was “a near-sacred obligation. A family will do almost anything to meet that monthly mortgage payment.” Bunk, says Stan Liebowitz, a professor of economics at the University of Texas: “The claim that lower-income homeowners are somehow different in their devotion to their home is a purely emotional claim with no evidence to support it.”

k. Any concern was quickly dismissed. When in early 2000 the FDIC proposed increasing capital requirements for lenders making “subprime” loans—loans to people with questionable credit, that is—Democratic representative Carolyn Maloney of New York told a congressional hearing that she feared that the step would dry up CRA loans. Her fellow New York Democrat John J. LaFalce urged regulators “not to be premature” in imposing new regulations.

l. In July 1999, HUD proposed new levels for Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s low-income lending; in September, Fannie Mae agreed to begin purchasing loans made to “borrowers with slightly impaired credit”—that is, with credit standards even lower than the government had been pushing for a generation.

m. In 2004 Congress pressed new affordable-housing goals on the two mortgage giants, which through 2007 purchased some $1 trillion in loans to lower- and moderate-income buyers. The buying spree helped spark a massive increase in securitization of mortgages to people with dubious credit.

n. In October 1994, Fannie Mae head James Johnson had reminded a banking convention that mortgages with small down payments had a much higher risk of defaulting. (A Duff & Phelps study found that they were nearly three times more likely to default than conventional mortgages.) Yet the very next month, Fannie Mae said that it expected to back loans to low-income home buyers with a 97 percent loan-to-value ratio—that is, loans in which the buyer puts down just 3 percent—as part of a commitment, made earlier that year to Congress, to purchase $1 trillion in affordable-housing mortgages by the end of the nineties. According to Edward Pinto, who served as the company’s chief credit officer, the program was the result of political pressure on Fannie Mae trumping lending standards.

o. In 1992, the Boston Fed produced an extraordinary 29-page document that codified the new lending wisdom. Conventional mortgage criteria, the report argued, might be “unintentionally biased” because they didn’t take into account “the economic culture of urban, lower-income and nontraditional customers.” Lenders should thus consider junking the industry’s traditional income-to-payments ratio and stop viewing an applicant’s “lack of credit history” as a “negative factor.” Further, if applicants had bad credit, banks should “consider extenuating circumstances”—even though a study by mortgage insurance companies would soon show, not surprisingly, that borrowers with no credit rating or a bad one were far more likely to default. If applicants didn’t have enough savings for a down payment, the Boston Fed urged, banks should allow loans from nonprofits or government assistance agencies to count toward one. A later study of Freddie Mac mortgages would find that a borrower who made a down payment with third-party funds was four times more likely to default, a reminder that traditional underwriting standards weren’t arbitrary but based on historical lending patterns.

p. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus launched Hogar in 2003, an initiative that pushed for easing lending standards for immigrants, including touting so-called seller-financed mortgages in which a builder provided down-payment aid to buyers via contributions to nonprofit groups. As a result, mortgage lending to Hispanics soared. And today, in districts where Hispanics make up at least 25 percent of the population, foreclosure rates are now nearly 50 percent higher than the national average, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.

q. Republicans and Democrats, meanwhile, have scrambled to reignite the housing market through ill-conceived tax credits and renewed federal subsidies for mortgages, including the Obama administration’s mortgage bailout plan, which recalls the New Deal’s HOLC. Behind these efforts is a fundamental misconception among politicians that housing drives the American economy and therefore demands subsidy at virtually any cost. Our praiseworthy initial efforts—to eliminate housing discrimination and provide all Americans an equal opportunity to buy a home—were eventually turned on their heads by advocates and politicians, who instead tried to ensure equality of outcomes.
Obsessive Housing Disorder by Steven Malanga, City Journal Spring 2009

 

[Chris]

Wall Street destroyed the world economy with a $516 trillion dollar derivatives Ponzi scheme....

A £516 trillion derivatives ‘time-bomb’
Not for nothing did US billionaire Warren Buffett call them the real ‘weapons of mass destruction’


By Margareta Pagano and Simon Evans
12 October 12 2008

The market is worth more than $516 trillion, (£303 trillion), roughly 10 times the value of the entire world’s output: it’s been called the “ticking time-bomb”.

It’s a market in which the lead protagonists – typically aggressive, highly educated, and now wealthy young men – have flourished in the derivatives boom. But it’s a market that is set to come to a crashing halt – the Great Unwind has begun.

Last week the beginning of the end started for many hedge funds with the combination of diving market values and worried investors pulling out their cash for safer climes.

Some of the world’s biggest hedge funds – SAC Capital, Lone Pine and Tiger Global – all revealed they were sitting on double-digit losses this year. September’s falls wiped out any profits made in the rest of the year. Polygon, once a darling of the London hedge fund circuit, last week said it was capping the basic salaries of its managers to £100,000 each. Not bad for the average punter but some way off the tens of millions plundered by these hotshots during the good times. But few will be shedding any tears.

The complex and opaque derivatives markets in which these hedge funds played has been dubbed the world’s biggest black hole because they operate outside of the grasp of governments, tax inspectors and regulators. They operate in a parallel, shadow world to the rest of the banking system. They are private contracts between two companies or institutions which can’t be controlled or properly assessed. In themselves derivative contracts are not dangerous, but if one of them should go wrong – the bad 2 per cent as it’s been called – then it is the domino effect which could be so enormous and scary.

A £516 trillion derivatives ‘time-bomb’ « Did You Know

 

[WatertheTree]

"It was not the banks that created the mortgage crisis. It was, plain and simple, Congress

Read more: Bloomberg To Protesters: Congress, Not Banks, To Blame For Mortgage Crisis | Fox News

Simple chronology for ALL you who still don't get it!!!

A) 1995 Obama/ACORN threaten Citibank occupy offices for 3 days to force subprime loans to unqualified people!
B) Banks FORCED to make bad loans confronted by FDIC regarding toxic loans forced BANKS to go to Fannie /Freddie Backed by Full faith and credit of Federal govt.!
C) Fannie/Freddie protected by Democrat Congress/Frank/Dodd package loans and resell to investors who BUY because investors know:
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have an ``effective'' federal guarantee, not the
"full faith and credit'' of the U.S. government, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director James Lockhart said after the hearing. That does give them effectively a guarantee of the U.S. government.''
Lockhart's Fannie, Freddie Guarantee Remarks Stir Up Confusion - Bloomberg
So the bubble burst WHEN and again evidently MOST of you don't know this:
Economic Terrorist Attack of 9/18/2008 happened!!!

"By 2pm that afternoon, $5.5 trillion would have been drawn out of the
money market system of the U.S., would have collapsed the entire
economy of the U.S., and within 24 hours the world economy would have
collapsed. It would have been the end of our economic system and our
political system as we know it."
Zero Hedge: How The World Almost Came To An End At 2PM On September 18

Ofcourse the Oligarchy will blame someone else. Do you really expect them to stand up and admit the level of influence they have?

No they will do as they have always done, hide.

 

[bucs90]

Democrats fault.......Republicans fault..........bottom line: The GOVERNMENTS fault.

Thats why the Tea Party is pissed at the government.

OWS, for some reason, is pissed at the people who were bullied by the gov't to do dumb stuff, and demand more power be given to the same government that forced the dumb shit to happen. Go figure.

 

[Uncensored2008]

#2 above ignore the fact that the GOP controlled Congress from Jan 1995 to Jan 2007.

Jake, I realize that you're a troll, a mindless partisan hack, a moron who posts utter shit to promote your shameful party.

Still, to tell such stupid lies is amazing,

The fascist democrats controlled the senate from 2000 through 2003.

#4 will result in the Dems smashing the GOP allegations with the facts.

Of course Jake, glorious peoples party cannot be stopped, da comrade.....

What a waste of carbon you are, fakey Jake.

 

[Seawytch]

Bloomberg is lying. It WAS the banks that are to blame.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2008/10/12/53802/private-sector-loans-not-fannie.html

 

[PoliticalChic]

Bloomberg is lying. It WAS the banks that are to blame.

Private sector loans, not Fannie or Freddie, triggered crisis | McClatchy

It must give you that warm fuzzy feeling to know how you are loved by the Left-wing manipulators...
....how they hope you have lots of brothers and sisters.

1.Here is Cashill as he observes with awe how quickly Douglas wrote his McClatchy story:
...I checked with my source on the scene, Greg Farrell, to get a timeline on the passage of the Black Caucus members from the Cannon Building to the Capitol and back. According to Farrell, they left the Cannon Building about 2:30 PM on March 20th and returned about 3:15 PM. He had no reason to exaggerate.

I asked because at 4:51 that same day, McClatchy reporter William Douglas posted an article on the McClatchy website with the inflammatory headline, "Tea party protesters scream '******' at black congressman."

In other words, Douglas, with an attributed assist from James Rosen, managed to interview representatives John Lewis, Emanuel Cleaver, and Barney Frank, compose an 800-word article, and have it edited and formatted for posting within a 90-minute window.
Read more: McClatchy Newspapers | NewsBusters.org

2. .Earlier this week an article by Jonathan Landay was published by the failing McClatchy Newspapers. The article asserted that innumerable people had been tortured with the intent and purpose of proving a tie between Saddam Hussein’s regime and the Al Queda network of terrorist groups. The article asserted that there never were any ties between the two, and that the torturing of captured Al Queda terrorists was done largely to create a fictional narrative that would support the case for invading Iraq (let’s ignore that the alleged “torture” happened AFTER the invasion of Iraq-just as was done in the article).
Jonathan Landay and McClatchy Newspapers Still Ignorant About Saddam’s Ties To Al Queda | Flopping Aces

3. Sacramento Bee Ratings

Content: Average (3 votes)
Political Bias: Leans Left (3 votes)
Credibility: Moderate (3 votes)

Sacramento Bee - daily newspaper in Sacramento, California USA with local news and events

4. Major left-leaning papers are bearing the brunt of the responsibility for the declines. The same papers that promote global warming and bury the news on Nancy Pelosi’s non-union and illegal hiring practices. …Gary Pruitt, CEO of the McClatchy Sacramento chain continues to spin. To give a taste of what is to come, during Q1, McClatchy executives said daily circulation fell 3.6 percent and Sunday dropped 4 percent. The Sunday paper is their aircraft carrier of revenue and readership. And it’s taking water. …Shares of newspaper publisher McClatchy Company fell to a seven-year low yesterday while the stock market hit an all time high busting the 13,000 mark. That is the way the McClatchy Newspaper Company Crumples | The end of elite liberal media empires and rise of citizen journalism

5. This campaign season The Kansas City Star passed on a parcel of the nation's most eye-popping stories. Incredibly, at least five of those stories flared up in the Star's home state, Missouri. As the reader might guess, all five stories reflected unfavorably on Democratic candidates.

This is nothing new. What is new is that by censoring such stories the Star has continued to show its indifference to the majority of its potential customers even as it struggles to stay afloat. …Worse, the Star is hardly alone. A score or more mid-size, mid-American newspapers are doing much the same thing, many of them owned by the Star's publisher, McClatchy.
Archived-Articles: Newspapers Censor Their Way to Oblivion


At the very least, I hope, besides being 'fed' by these folks, you're getting a check from your handlers!