Democrats are not just like Republicans

[edthecynic]

KK right wing?

Bozo's world, anyone that isn't a flaming left wing nut is right wing......

Is it still "Bozo's world" when LimpBoy does the same thing?????? LOL

Ex-Pittsburgher Calls Town Racist
April 8, 2008
RUSH: Any person or organization who is not conservative by definition will be a liberal.

 

[edthecynic]

Aaah ... this was the government forcing them to give credit to these high risk applicants actually, and it was done by Democrats. As for "my right wing ideas" ... seriously? This again? Republicans allowed banks to do what they want, which was wrong, but Democrats forced banks to make bad loans, which was wrong as well.

But--the Banks that are at the center of this mess stated on congressional record that no one forced them to make bad loans or ease credit restrictions.

This is the crux of the whole issue. If the Banks were not forced(neither by Dems or Reps) and they claimed that they were not forced, how does the arguement that they were forced hold weight in reality?

Look at "minority mortgage policies" ... they were forced in a way, so yes, and that was a Dem policy.

You can't pass Bush off as a Dem!!!
Bush's Dec 2003 American Dream Downpayment Initiative (ADDI) is what changed the rules to allow no downpayment loans to people with bad credit for more than the house was worth and who were at least 20% below the standard for the neighborhood.

American Dream Downpayment Initiative - Affordable Housing - CPD - HUD
American Dream Downpayment Initiative
Summary

The American Dream Downpayment Initiative (ADDI) was signed into law on December 16, 2003. The American Dream Downpayment Assistance Act authorizes up to $200 million annually for fiscal years 2004 - 2007. ADDI will provide funds to all fifty states and to local participating jurisdictions that have a population of at least 150,000 or will receive an allocation of at least $50,000 under the ADDI formula. ADDI will be administered as a part of the HOME Investment Partnerships Program, a formula grant program.

Purpose

ADDI aims to increase the homeownership rate, especially among lower income and minority households, and to revitalize and stabilize communities. ADDI will help first-time homebuyers with the biggest hurdle to homeownership: downpayment and closing costs. The program was created to assist low-income first-time homebuyers in purchasing single-family homes by providing funds for downpayment, closing costs, and rehabilitation carried out in conjunction with the assisted home purchase.

Type of Assistance

ADDI will provide downpayment, closing costs, and rehabilitation assistance to eligible individuals. The amount of ADDI assistance provided may not exceed $10,000 or six percent of the purchase price of the home, whichever is greater. The rehabilitation must be completed within one year of the home purchase. Rehabilitation may include, but is not limited to, the reduction of lead paint hazards and the remediation of other home health hazards.

Eligible Customers

To be eligible for ADDI assistance, individuals must be first-time homebuyers interested in purchasing single family housing. A first-time homebuyer is defined as an individual and his or her spouse who have not owned a home during the three-year period prior to the purchase of a home with ADDI assistance. ADDI funds may be used to purchase one- to four- family housing, condominium unit, cooperative unit, or manufactured housing. Additionally, individuals who qualify for ADDI assistance must have incomes not exceeding 80% of area median income.

Eligible Activities

ADDI funds may be used for downpayment, closing costs and, if necessary, rehabilitation in conjunction with home purchase. ADDI funds used for rehabilitation may not exceed twenty percent of the participating jurisdiction's total ADDI allocation. The rehabilitation assisted with ADDI funds must be completed within one year of the home purchase.

Funding Status

In FY 2007, Congress appropriated $24,750,000 for ADDI. Previously, Congress appropriated $74,513,000 in FY2003 and $86,984 in FY2004, $49,600,000 in FY2005 and $24,750,000 in FY2006. HUD has issued formula allocations for FY 2007 to assist participating jurisdictions in preparing their consolidated plans.

Obtaining Assistance

First, check the formula allocation page to determine whether your local HOME administering agency received ADDI funding. If they did not receive ADDI funding, ADDI funds may be available through your state. Every state received ADDI funds. The contacts for state are available in the HOME administering agency list.

USATODAY.com - Bush seeks to increase minority homeownership

Bush seeks to increase minority homeownership
By Thomas A. Fogarty, USA TODAY

In a bid to boost minority homeownership, President Bush will ask Congress for authority to eliminate the down-payment requirement for Federal Housing Administration loans.

In announcing the plan Monday at a home builders show in Las Vegas, Federal Housing Commissioner John Weicher called the proposal the "most significant FHA initiative in more than a decade." It would lead to 150,000 first-time owners annually, he said.

Nothing-down options are available on the private mortgage market, but, in general, they require the borrower to have pristine credit. Bush's proposed change would extend the nothing-down option to borrowers with blemished credit.

The FHA isn't a direct lender, but guarantees loan payments for mortgages on moderately priced owner-occupied property. The FHA guarantee now permits private lenders to finance as much as 97% of the purchase price of a home for millions of low- and middle-income borrowers.

In the proposal soon to be delivered to Congress, Bush would allow the FHA to guarantee loans for the full purchase price of the home, plus down-payment costs. As a practical matter, the FHA would guarantee mortgages as high as 103% of the value of the underlying property.

 

[amrchaos]

only to those who don't understand them.

A credit card is the most useful tool to increase one's credit rating. But sheeple don't have the discipline to use that tool correctly.

And whose fault is that?

I say it's the fault of the individual.

What you say is true ... except why would one need to improve their credit rating if one is smart enough to live within their means, and still enjoy such luxuries without credit?

Thats a very good question/point you just make.

My conspiracy dvd's tell how the bankers came up with this scam.

The more we go into debt, the more they "own" us.

I can not stand the "credit rating" bullshit. Isn't that a fancy way of charging us poor people more than they charge rich people?

One problem about this "more in debt, the more the banks own you"

It is just that--Far out conspiracy.

The Banks have a problem with collecting a debt--after a certain point in time, the banks must right it off as a lost. During this time, they "sell" the debt to a collector that tries to reap as gather as much as possible from the debt. Now, the collector does not actually pay anything up front when they "buy" the debt, in fact they are assigned a percentage to how much they will gain from what they collect.


Even with the collector, there is a time period in which the debt becomes totally uncollectible. In the mean time, you credit score drops like a rock.

The point people really miss about banks is that Banks are the ultimate middle man in transactions. Yes, they allow for speedy access to goods, but one has to ask the most troubling question of all when concerning banks.

WHAT IS THE TRUE VALUE OF THEIR SERVICE.

Usury laws were passed to help protect consumers. But it also serves as an indirect protection for non-financial corporations that produce or sell goods for profit. Why?
Because these businesses need paying customers, but if a customer is using up to much of his check to pay off a bank, then that money is not going to the REAL market--Industry.

Now I can understand why Free marketers would love to protect Banks and praise them for the amount of profit they can generate, but really--do you really want to push the profit motif in a market sector that could stagnate the main part of our economy because of its nice Profit margins. Do not forget about goods accessability by the Public. Excessive profits plus inability to distribute goods is the recipe for violent revolt.

 

[sealybobo]

nobody listens to pigs pig!

Was this directed at s.bobo?

Bobo is the only pig I've met on this board.. I fixed it.. sorry I put it on the word response.

You make me sick too.

And you are probably a very nice woman in real life. So are my conservative prick friends at work and at home.

If we don't talk politics, they are fine.

 

[Iriemon]

Aaah ... this was the government forcing them to give credit to these high risk applicants actually, and it was done by Democrats. As for "my right wing ideas" ... seriously? This again? Republicans allowed banks to do what they want, which was wrong, but Democrats forced banks to make bad loans, which was wrong as well.

Will you right wingers stop showing us over and over again how fucking dumb you are. Its getting god damn annoying. I'm getting sick of explaining it to you. Wake the fuck up!!!

Ready? One more time.

The bankers bundled up all the fucking loans. Did Jimmy Carter fucking know they were going to do that?

Did Jimmy fucking carter know Bush was going to ruin the fucking economy by sending all the middle class jobs overseas?

So why do you think so many fucking Americans lost their fucking jobs and homes?

And allowing the mortgage companies to predatory lend?

Anyone would walk away from a home that is worth $100K but they owe $200k.

So if you really understood everything that went on the last 8 years, you would never say such a fuckign stupid thing like, "Democrats forced banks to give bad loans".

Are you suggesting that poor people crashed the global market?

And notice you idiot republicans never take the blame for anything. If you do, its always when "everyone is responsible".

Is there ever a time in US history where the GOP all by themselves fucked up?

God I hate Republicans and their stupidity. Seriously. I would even be willing to go to war with you assholes and the loser gets to move to the fucking red states. And you can do whatever you want to your citizens. You want to send their jobs overseas? You want to hire illegals to work in your factories?

In 1 year you'll come crawling back begging us liberals to save you.

Sorry .. I can't get past your first sentence on this one ....

I'd actually like to know how "Democrats forced banks to make bad loans" as you've claimed also. I've heard this claim before. So how specifically how did Democrats force banks to make bad loans?

 

[WillowTree]

was this directed at s.bobo?

bobo is the only pig i've met on this board.. I fixed it.. Sorry i put it on the word response.

you make me sick too.

And you are probably a very nice woman in real life. So are my conservative prick friends at work and at home.

If we don't talk politics, they are fine.

you are still a pig and will always be a pig. You can never get away from being a pig

 

[JimCo]

KittenKoder ... and Democrats forced mortgage companies to give out loans to people who couldn't make the payments then pass the bill to the tax payers who weren't stupid enough to get credit ... your point?

Yea them mean old Dems forced those mortgage companies kicking and screaming to make all these bad loans and all their executives got was big fat bonuses!!



Feature ArticlesMalaysia UpdatesGeopolitical AnalysisCurrent AffairsMilitary / IntelligenceFinancial AnalysisAboutHome





FINANCIAL ANALYSIS



At Washington Mutual, A Relentless Urge To Approve Any Loan - By Peter S. Goodman and Gretchen Morgenson
By Peter S. Goodman and Gretchen Morgenson
Tuesday, 30 December 2008 02:13

December 28, 2008 IHT



"We hope to do to this industry what Wal-Mart did to theirs, Starbucks did to theirs, Costco did to theirs and Lowe's-Home Depot did to their industry. And I think if we've done our job, five years from now you're not going to call us a bank."



- Kerry Killinger, chief executive of Washington Mutual, 2003



As a supervisor at a Washington Mutual mortgage processing center, John Parsons was accustomed to seeing baby sitters claiming salaries worthy of college presidents, and schoolteachers with incomes rivaling those of stockbrokers. He rarely questioned them. A real estate frenzy was under way and WaMu, as his bank was known, was all about saying yes.
Yet even by WaMu's relaxed standards, the mortgage on one home four years ago raised eyebrows. The borrower was claiming a six-figure income and an unusual profession: mariachi singer.



Parsons could not verify the singer's income, so he had the applicant photographed in front of the home, dressed in his mariachi outfit. The photo went into a WaMu file. Approved.



"I'd lie if I said every piece of documentation was properly signed and dated," said Parsons, speaking through wire-reinforced glass at a California prison near here, where he is serving 16 months for theft after his fourth arrest - all involving drugs.



While Parsons, whose incarceration is not related to his work for WaMu, oversaw a team screening mortgage applications, he was snorting methamphetamine daily, he said.



"In our world, it was tolerated," said Sherri Zaback, who worked for Parsons and recalls seeing drug paraphernalia on his desk. "Everybody said, 'He gets the job done."'



At WaMu, getting the job done meant lending money to nearly anyone who asked for it - the force behind the bank's meteoric rise and its precipitous collapse this year in the biggest bank failure in American history.



In a financial landscape littered with wreckage, WaMu, a Seattle-based bank that opened branches at a clip worthy of a fast-food chain, stands out as a singularly brazen case of lax lending. By the first half of this year, the value of its bad loans had reached $11.5 billion, having nearly tripled from $4.2 billion a year earlier.



Interviews with two dozen former employees, mortgage brokers, real estate agents and appraisers show the relentless pressure to churn out loans that produced such results. While that sample may not fully represent a bank with tens of thousands of people, it does reflect the views of employees in WaMu mortgage operations in California, Florida, Illinois and Texas.



Their accounts are consistent with those of 89 other former employees who are confidential witnesses in a class action filed against WaMu in U.S. court in Seattle by former shareholders.



According to these accounts, pressure to keep lending emanated from the top, where executives profited from the swift expansion - not least, Kerry Killinger, who was WaMu's chief executive from 1990 until he was forced out in September.



Between 2001 and 2007, Killinger received compensation of $88 million, according to the Corporate Library, a research firm. He declined to respond to a list of questions, and his spokesman said he was unavailable for an interview.



During Killinger's tenure, WaMu pressed sales agents to pump out loans while disregarding borrowers' incomes and assets, according to former employees. The bank set up what insiders described as a system of dubious legality that enabled real estate agents to collect fees of more than $10,000 for bringing in borrowers, sometimes making the agents more beholden to WaMu than they were to their clients.



WaMu gave mortgage brokers handsome commissions for selling the riskiest loans, which carried higher fees, bolstering profits and ultimately the compensation of the bank's executives. WaMu pressed appraisers to provide inflated property values that made loans appear less risky, enabling Wall Street to bundle them more easily for sale to investors.



"It was the Wild West," said Steven Knobel, a founder of an appraisal company - Mitchell, Maxwell & Jackson - that did business with WaMu until 2007. "If you were alive, they would give you a loan. Actually, I think if you were dead, they would still give you a loan."



JPMorgan Chase, which bought WaMu for $1.9 billion in September and received $25 billion a few weeks later as part of the taxpayer bailout of the financial services industry, declined to make former WaMu executives available for interviews.



JPMorgan also declined to comment on WaMu's operations before it bought the company. "It is a different era for our customers and for the company," a spokesman said.



For those who placed their faith and money in WaMu, the bank's implosion came as a shock.



"I never had a clue about the amount of off-the-cliff activity that was going on at Washington Mutual, and I was in constant contact with the company," said Vincent Au, president of Avalon Partners, an investment firm. "There were people at WaMu that orchestrated nothing more than a sham or charade. These people broke every fundamental rule of running a company."



'Like a sweatshop'



Some WaMu employees who worked for the bank during the boom now have regrets.



"It was a disgrace," said Dana Zweibel, a former financial representative at a WaMu branch in Tampa, Florida. "We were giving loans to people that never should have had loans."



If Zweibel doubted whether customers could pay, supervisors directed her to keep selling, she said. "We were told from up above that that's not our concern," she said. "Our concern is just to write the loan."



The ultimate supervisor at WaMu was Killinger, who joined the company in 1983 and became chief executive in 1990. He inherited a bank that had been founded in 1889 and had survived the Depression and the savings and loan scandal of the 1980s.



An investment analyst by training, he was attuned to Wall Street's hunger for growth. Between late 1996 and early 2002, he transformed WaMu into the sixth-largest U.S. bank through a series of acquisitions.



A crucial deal came in 1999, with the purchase of Long Beach Financial, a California lender specializing in subprime mortgages - loans extended to borrowers with troubled credit.



WaMu underscored its eagerness to lend with an advertising campaign introduced during the 2003 Academy Awards:



"The Power of Yes." No mere advertising pitch, this was also the mantra inside the bank, underwriters said.



"WaMu came out with that slogan, and that was what we had to live by," Zaback said. "We joked about it a lot." A file would get marked problematic and then somehow get approved. "We'd say: 'O.K.! The power of yes."'



Revenue at WaMu's mortgage unit swelled from $707 million in 2002 to almost $2 billion the following year, when the "The Power of Yes" campaign started.



Between 2000 and 2003, the number of WaMu's retail branches grew 70 percent, reaching 2,200 across 38 states, as the bank used an image of cheeky irreverence to attract new customers. In offbeat television ads, casually dressed WaMu employees ridiculed staid bankers in suits.



Branches were pushed to increase lending. "It was just disgusting," said Zweibel, the Tampa representative. "They wanted you to spend time, while you're running teller transactions and opening checking accounts, selling people loans."



Employees in Tampa who fell short were ordered to drive to a WaMu office in Sarasota, an hour away. There, they sat in a phone bank with 20 other people, calling customers to push home equity loans.



"The regional manager would be over your shoulder, listening to every word," Zweibel recalled. "They treated us like we were in a sweatshop."



At the other end of the country, at WaMu's processing office in San Diego, Zaback's job was to take loan applications from branches in Southern California and make sure they passed muster. Most of the loans she said she handled required the borrower to provide only an address and a Social Security number and to state income and assets.



She ran applications through WaMu's computer system for approval. If she needed more information, she had to consult a loan officer, which she described as an unpleasant experience. "They would be furious," Zaback said. "They would put it on you, that they weren't going to get paid if you stood in the way."



On one loan application in 2005, a borrower identified himself as a gardener and listed his monthly income as $12,000, Zaback recalled. She could not verify his business license, so she took the file to her boss, Parsons.



He used the mariachi singer as inspiration: a photo of the borrower's truck emblazoned with the name of his landscaping business went into the file. Approved.



Parsons, who worked for WaMu in San Diego from about 2002 through 2005, said his supervisors constantly praised his performance. "My numbers were through the roof," he said.



On another occasion, Zaback asked a loan officer for verification of an applicant's assets. The officer sent a letter from a bank showing a balance of about $150,000 in the borrower's account, she recalled. But when Zaback called the bank to confirm, she was told the balance was only $5,000.



The loan officer yelled at her, Zaback recalled. "She said, 'We don't call the bank to verify."' Zaback said she had told Parsons that she no longer wanted to work with that loan officer, but he had replied: "Too bad."



Shortly thereafter, Parsons disappeared from the office. Zaback later learned of his arrest for burglary and drug possession.



The sheer workload at WaMu ensured that loan reviews were limited. Zaback's office had 108 people, and several hundred new files a day. She was required to process at least 10 files daily.



"I'd typically spend a maximum of 35 minutes per file," she said. "It was just disheartening. Just spit it out and get it done. That's what they wanted us to do. Garbage in, and garbage out."



Referral fees for loans



WaMu's boiler room culture flourished in Southern California, where housing prices rose so rapidly during the bubble that creative financing was needed to attract buyers.



To that end, WaMu embraced so-called option ARMs - adjustable-rate mortgages that enticed borrowers with a selection of low initial rates and allowed them to decide how much to pay each month. But people who chose minimum payments were underpaying the interest due and adding to their principal, eventually causing loan payments to balloon.



Customers were often left with the impression that low payments would continue long term, according to former WaMu sales agents.



For WaMu, variable-rate loans - option adjustable-rate mortgages, in particular - were especially attractive because they carried higher fees than other loans and allowed WaMu to book profits on interest payments that borrowers deferred. Because WaMu was selling many of its loans to investors, it did not worry about defaults: by the time loans went bad, they were often in other hands.



WaMu's adjustable-rate mortgages expanded from about one-fourth of new home loans in 2003 to 70 percent by 2006. In 2005 and 2006 - when WaMu pushed option adjustable-rate mortgages most aggressively - Killinger received pay of $19 million and $24 million respectively.



The ARM loan niche



WaMu's retail mortgage office in Downey, California, specialized in selling option ARMs to Latino customers who spoke little English and depended on advice from real estate brokers, according to a former sales agent who requested anonymity because he was still in the mortgage business.



According to that agent, WaMu turned real estate agents into a pipeline for loan applications by giving them "referral fees" for clients who became WaMu borrowers.



Buyers were typically oblivious to agents' fees, the agent said, and agents rarely explained the loan terms.



"Their realtor was their trusted friend," the agent said. "The realtors would sell them on a minimum payment, and that was an outright lie."



According to the agent, the strategy was the brainchild of Thomas Ramirez, who oversaw a sales team of about 20 agents at the Downey branch during the first half of this decade, and now works for Wells Fargo.



Ramirez confirmed that he and his team had allowed real estate agents to collect commissions, but he maintained that the fees had been fully disclosed.



"I don't think the bank would have let us do the program if it was bad," Ramirez said.



Ramirez's team sold nearly $1 billion worth of loans in 2004, he said. His performance made him a perennial member of WaMu's President's Club, which brought big bonuses and recognition at an awards ceremony for which Killinger typically was host at warm-weather locations like Hawaii.



Ramirez's success prompted WaMu to populate a neighboring building in Downey with loan processors, underwriters and appraisers who worked for him. The fees proved so enticing that real estate agents arrived in Downey from all over Southern California, bearing six and seven loan applications at a time, the former agent said.



WaMu banned referral fees in 2006, fearing they could be construed as illegal payments from the bank to agents. But the bank allowed Ramirez's team to continue using the referral fees, the agent said.



Forced out with millions



By 2005, the word was out that WaMu would accept applications with a mere statement of the borrower's income and assets - often with no documentation required - as long as credit scores were adequate, according to Zaback and other underwriters.



"We had a flier that said, 'A thin file is a good file,"' recalled Michele Culbertson, a wholesale sales agent with WaMu.



Martine Lado, an agent in the Irvine, California, office, said she had coached brokers to leave parts of applications blank to avoid prompting verification if the borrower's job or income was sketchy.



"We were looking for people who understood how to do loans at WaMu," Lado said.



Top producers became heroes. Craig Clark, called the "king of the option ARM" by colleagues, closed loans totaling about $1 billion in 2005, according to four of his former coworkers, a tally he amassed in part by challenging anyone who doubted him.



"He was a bulldozer when it came to getting his stuff done," said Lisa Alvarez, who worked in the Irvine office from 2003 to 2006.



Christine Crocker, who managed WaMu's wholesale underwriting division in Irvine, recalled one mortgage to an elderly couple from a broker on Clark's team.



With a fixed income of about $3,200 a month, the couple needed a fixed-rate loan. But their broker earned a commission of three percentage points by arranging an option ARM for them, and did so by listing their income as $7,000 a month. Soon, their payment jumped from about $1,000 a month to about $3,000, and they fell behind.



Clark, who now works for JPMorgan, referred calls to a company spokesman, who provided no further details.



In 2006, WaMu slowed the use of option adjustable-rate mortgages. But earlier, ill-considered loans had already begun hurting its results. In 2007, it recorded a $67 million loss and shut down its subprime lending unit.



By the time shareholders joined WaMu for its annual meeting in Seattle last April, WaMu had posted a first-quarter loss of $1.14 billion and increased its loan loss reserve to $3.5 billion. Its stock had lost more than half its value in the previous two months. Anger was in the air.



Some shareholders were irate that Killinger and other executives were excluding mortgage losses from the computation of their bonuses. Others were enraged that WaMu had turned down an $8-a-share takeover bid from JPMorgan.



"Calm down and have a little faith," Killinger told the crowd. "We will get through this."



WaMu asked shareholders to approve a $7 billion investment by Texas Pacific Group, a private equity firm, and other unnamed investors. David Bonderman, a founder of Texas Pacific and a former WaMu director, declined to comment.



Hostile shareholders argued that the deal would dilute their holdings, but Killinger forced it through, saying WaMu desperately needed new capital.



Weeks later, with WaMu in tatters, directors stripped Killinger of his board chairmanship. And the bank began including mortgage losses when calculating executive bonuses.



In September, Killinger was forced to retire. Later that month, with WaMu buckling under about $180 billion in mortgage-related loans, regulators seized the bank and sold it to JPMorgan for $1.9 billion, a fraction of the $40 billion valuation the stock market had given WaMu at its peak.



Billions that investors had plowed into WaMu were wiped out, as were prospects for many of the bank's 50,000 employees. But Killinger still had his millions, rankling laid-off workers and shareholders alike.



"Kerry has made over $100 million over his tenure based on the aggressiveness that sunk the company," said Au, the money manager. "How does he justify taking that money?"



In June, Au sent an e-mail message to the company, asking executives to return some of their pay. He says he has not heard back.



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[KittenKoder]

*yawn* You are still avoiding the blame of those who really caused the problem ... the morons who took the damned loans.

 

[elvis]

*yawn* You are still avoiding the blame of those who really caused the problem ... the morons who took the damned loans.

I can't believe you wasted your time reading that damned thing. You'd think pubicus was writing it.

 

[eots]

the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs committee passed the Dodd-Levin Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act of 2009 (CARD Act, S.414).

This legislation will put an end to a host of deceptive and unjust credit card practices that impose additional financial hardship on consumers who are doing their best to stay afloat.

This legislation seeks to put an end to unfair credit card practices that mire millions of American families in debt. The Dodd-Levin CARD Act results in part from an ongoing investigation into abusive credit card practices I initiated as the Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. In May 2007, in response to the abuses brought to light as a result of this investigation, I introduced the Stop Unfair Practices in Credit Cards Act (S.1395). I am pleased that nearly all of the provisions from S.1395 have been included in the CARD Act of 2009.

The landmark bill approved by the Banking Committee earlier this week would ban the most egregious credit card practices that are unfairly deepening or prolonging credit card debt for many consumers. Under this legislation, for example, credit card companies would be prohibited from applying higher interest rates retroactively to existing credit card debt, hiking interest rates on customers who pay on time, and collecting interest on credit card debts that were repaid on time. In addition, this bill would crack down on unreasonable fees, including repeated late fees, over-the-limit fees, and fees to pay your bill, and would prohibit charging interest on those fees. It would also prohibit so-called “universal default” interest rate hikes in which a credit card company hikes a cardholder’s interest rate for reasons unrelated to the account held with that company. It would also make sure that cardholders get their bills 21 days before the bill is due and give them until 5:00 p.m. on the due date to make a payment.

I have called on the full Senate to pass the Dodd-Levin CARD Act as soon as possible. At a time when working people are struggling, common sense credit card reform is essential to protect American families from unfair fees and interest charges.

You can view both my press release on committee passage at []Technical difficulties. and my statement upon introduction of this bill at []Technical difficulties..
Sincerely,
Carl Levin

Dude..snap out of it...

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAaQNACwaLw]YouTube - The Obama Deception HQ Full length version[/ame]

 

[eots]

One Nation Under Siege Seige Full Movie High Quality

 

[elvis]

rosieoats is going to try to "hijack" another thread.

 

[Harry Dresden]

THE JOB SITE. Is that what they call your cooter?

I didn't know illegals needed a work permit to pleasure you.

Bobo....you have your head so far up the Far Lefts collective ass,that you probably know who had corn last night.....did you happen to see Truth Matters in there?....he is another one....

 

[Harry Dresden]

Was this directed at s.bobo?

Bobo is the only pig I've met on this board.. I fixed it.. sorry I put it on the word response.

You make me sick too.

And you are probably a very nice woman in real life. So are my conservative prick friends at work and at home.

If we don't talk politics, they are fine.

sounds like some fucking libs i know.....

 

[Shadow]

*yawn* You are still avoiding the blame of those who really caused the problem ... the morons who took the damned loans.

I can't believe you wasted your time reading that damned thing. You'd think pubicus was writing it.

I see the noobs have mad copy and paste skillz...Grrrrrrrr8.

 

[frazzledgear]

Hmm ... allowing them to or forcing them to ... the only difference I see is the wording.

What? See, you right wingers can defend anything.

This is just like when the GOP allowed mortgage companies to predatory lend, and you blamed the consumers.

Now I'm showing you that under the GOP, the credit card companies were allowed to basically turn themselves into loan sharks, and you don't see a problem with that? This is exactly why they need to be regulated.

Let me explain what this story should tell you, since you clearly can't comprehend it.

The GOP allowed the credit card companies to fuck us for 8 years!!! All the shit this bill is going to fix, shouldn't have been allowed in the first place. But the GOP thought it woudl be ok to let the credit card companies and bankers regulate themselves.

And they have done a great job, huh retard?

The government's job is to protect us. So yes, the Dems are going to FORCE THEM to stop.

Why did the GOP allow this? Because they work for the bankers and credit card companies. Fuck the citizens.

That's why we elected the Dems and thats why we kicked the GOP out of office. One reason anyways.

Yes, force. Government sets the rules, not corporations.

You right wingers need to stop thinking that corporations are more important than people. They are not. And if they threaten to leave, they can sell their shit to the country they go to.

Democracy - Not "The Free Market" - Will Save America's Middle Class

I would imagine that your inability to think for yourself is a major handicap in other areas of your life as well. Undoubtedly you are a product of our public school system. But how about you stop repeating lying ass propaganda, ok? Only other liberals are buying it anyway -not anyone with any critical thinking skills and willing to take the time to find the full facts for themselves though.

I'm sorry but it wasn't Republicans who pressured banks to make high risk loans to people who normally would never have qualified. Banks didn't WANT to be making these high risk loans either -they all knew it was bad business. They had to be forced to do so -and government did just that. Seriously -why would Republicans even think getting poor people in over their heads into debt they couldn't repay was a good thing anyway? Think that was on any Republican agenda? LOL Democrats thought it was a good idea in the belief that it would be HELPING the poor if they were handed a house they had put no money into and made no down payment on -and just getting that house would somehow MAGICALLY result in them paying back loans they couldn't afford in the first place. Oh come on -that has DEMOCRAT written all over it and you know it.

You sound as if this all occurred AND reached crisis stage in just a few years! But ONLY those few years where Republicans controlled Congress of course, right? LOL Any idea how long it REALLY takes before high risk loans would reach a critical percentage of a bank's assets when the vast and overwhelming majority of the loans they make every year are NOT high risk? Clearly you haven't a clue when this started and the real roots of it. You only know when it reached crisis stage and finally came to the public's attention - and have decided Democrat politicians intent on saving their asses by blaming the opposite party are the real "truth tellers" here and giving you the "full facts" and no reason to even think about this one, just keep saying "it was REPUBLICANS' fault!" LOL You do realize that you are the epitome of the "useful idiot" as defined in the communist manifesto, right? You do it well too. I must have missed it when Democrats, upon getting control of both houses of Congress in 2006 -did something ANYTHING to try and head this off.

And apparently YOU missed it when Bush repeatedly urged Congress to address this problem and tighten regulations BEFORE a crisis occurred. And missed it when Bush got a bill sponsored that would have created a regulatory body to specifically address this problem only to have Democrats kill it in committee? Must have also missed it when Franks said there was no impending financial crisis and that government needed to pressure banks to make MORE of these high risk loans? Guess that means you also missed it when McCain sponsored a bill and stood on the floor of the Senate URGING the Democrat controlled Congress to take action before it was too late -only to have Democrats vote down his bill? Instead you show up here with your babble about those "evil" Republicans because .....Democrats said so and claim those are the "full facts"? Pretty pathetic you know. Omitting certain facts in order to manipulate people to believe something false, something they would not believe if they knew those facts - is a form of LYING. Democrats lied big time on this one and you are the chump here Sealybobo, sorry.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs[/ame] See if you can actually follow who from which party is saying what. This one makes your mindless babble about Republicans just pathetic and the uniformed drivel it is. [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMnSp4qEXNM[/ame] [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxMInSfanqg&NR=1[/ame]

You want to know who to really blame -then make sure you know who actually had their hands in this first, the role they all played -and WHY. This started under Clinton when Democrats controlled Congress and thought forcing banks into making high risk loans to people who would otherwise never get a loan was a desirable thing. Oh sure, destroying whatever credit the poor had when they defaulted on these loans was a great way to help them, right? Democrats didn't consider the consequences of the high default rate such a practice would involve -because they stupidly believed they were HELPING THE POOR and since that was so NOBLE, it must be a really wonderful idea! This policy wasn't changed when Republicans controlled Congress because they didn't want to take the political hit Democrats would launch insisting it somehow "proved" Republicans hated the poor and wanted to keep them poor. And once Democrats regained control of Congress, they not only refused to do anything about it, Democrats VIGOROUSLY defended it in response to the growing and increasing calls that a major crisis was rapidly approaching! If you think otherwise, go back and watch those videos of Democrats defending this and insisting there was no growing crisis at all! A high percentage of these people had been defaulting on these loans all along -but the percentage of the banks' assets these bad loans represented had gotten to the point where the rate of defaults could cause the entire collapse of the institution. It is a FACT that it was Democrats who tried to use the Congressional Finance and Banking committees -which have regulatory oversight of the banks -for their SOCIAL ENGINEERING experiment! And a fact that Republicans refused to stop it for fear of taking a political hit from Democrats turning it into a "hate the poor" bullshit. One party of arrogant elitists who think the proper use of government is to force private businesses into bad business practices for their social engineering experiments and another party of pusillanimous wimps unwilling to stand up and do the right thing because it might come with a political cost to them personally. Both parties screwed over the entire country and we should toss the entire lot out.

And let's get real here, ok? These people who are defaulting on their loans are NOT victims of anyone here except possibly their own greed. This one isn't rocket science -a person of normal intelligence would instantly understand what they were being offered here. They were handed a house they paid nothing for -no down payment was made like everyone else has to do, not a single penny of their own was at risk here. If they paid the loan for that house, it would be theirs -if not and they defaulted on it, then they lost NOTHING because not one cent of their own money was tied up in it. Who wouldn't take that? Its a win-win situation for people who would normally never get a loan in the first place. It is NOT my problem or anyone else's problem that some were just too greedy and used the opportunity to choose houses way above their means and ones they already knew they could never pay for anyway. I'm not losing any sleep over the fact that some of them defaulted on their loans and are losing a house they didn't put one cent of their own money into anyway, sorry.


Try to remember this truism. Whatever government touches, it screws up. This is a truism because it is TRUE. It doesn't matter which party is in power, it doesn't matter how "noble" sounding those politicians' goals may be -this doesn't change. In fact, the more "noble" sounding the goals, the bigger the screw ups tend to be. If you think government knows far better how to run banks or any other business and believe a bunch of arrogant, elitist lawyers who could never get a real job can do a better job at making the major business decisions - try to remember the truth here. GOVERNMENT IS RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT HAPPENED HERE! Not a political party but GOVERNMENT itself and regardless of which party was in power. And now Obama wants government to have far more control in making those decisions! Obama intends to turn those TARP loans into shares of stock, making government the largest shareholder in many of these banks. Which comes with the power to call the shots for all sorts of business decisions and means all loans and all financial business decisions of these banks will be made by government -and be a POLITICAL DECISION, not a business one. After seeing how well they screwed up with these high risk loans, it somehow increased your confidence in government being far more qualified to make these business decisions? LOL What a sap you truly are then -because you must believe that Democrats will always be the ones wielding that power and turning those banking decisions into political ones, right? ROFLMAO I'd rather neither side have the ability to run our banks in accordance with their politics. Which is why I'm a conservative and you are a short-sighted moron.

 

[sealybobo]

Hmm ... allowing them to or forcing them to ... the only difference I see is the wording.

What? See, you right wingers can defend anything.

This is just like when the GOP allowed mortgage companies to predatory lend, and you blamed the consumers.

Now I'm showing you that under the GOP, the credit card companies were allowed to basically turn themselves into loan sharks, and you don't see a problem with that? This is exactly why they need to be regulated.

Let me explain what this story should tell you, since you clearly can't comprehend it.

The GOP allowed the credit card companies to fuck us for 8 years!!! All the shit this bill is going to fix, shouldn't have been allowed in the first place. But the GOP thought it woudl be ok to let the credit card companies and bankers regulate themselves.

And they have done a great job, huh retard?

The government's job is to protect us. So yes, the Dems are going to FORCE THEM to stop.

Why did the GOP allow this? Because they work for the bankers and credit card companies. Fuck the citizens.

That's why we elected the Dems and thats why we kicked the GOP out of office. One reason anyways.

Yes, force. Government sets the rules, not corporations.

You right wingers need to stop thinking that corporations are more important than people. They are not. And if they threaten to leave, they can sell their shit to the country they go to.

Democracy - Not "The Free Market" - Will Save America's Middle Class

I would imagine that your inability to think for yourself is a major handicap in other areas of your life as well. Undoubtedly you are a product of our public school system. But how about you stop repeating lying ass propaganda, ok? Only other liberals are buying it anyway -not anyone with any critical thinking skills and willing to take the time to find the full facts for themselves though.

I'm sorry but it wasn't Republicans who pressured banks to make high risk loans to people who normally would never have qualified. Banks didn't WANT to be making these high risk loans either -they all knew it was bad business. They had to be forced to do so -and government did just that. Seriously -why would Republicans even think getting poor people in over their heads into debt they couldn't repay was a good thing anyway? Think that was on any Republican agenda? LOL Democrats thought it was a good idea in the belief that it would be HELPING the poor if they were handed a house they had put no money into and made no down payment on -and just getting that house would somehow MAGICALLY result in them paying back loans they couldn't afford in the first place. Oh come on -that has DEMOCRAT written all over it and you know it.

You sound as if this all occurred AND reached crisis stage in just a few years! But ONLY those few years where Republicans controlled Congress of course, right? LOL Any idea how long it REALLY takes before high risk loans would reach a critical percentage of a bank's assets when the vast and overwhelming majority of the loans they make every year are NOT high risk? Clearly you haven't a clue when this started and the real roots of it. You only know when it reached crisis stage and finally came to the public's attention - and have decided Democrat politicians intent on saving their asses by blaming the opposite party are the real "truth tellers" here and giving you the "full facts" and no reason to even think about this one, just keep saying "it was REPUBLICANS' fault!" LOL You do realize that you are the epitome of the "useful idiot" as defined in the communist manifesto, right? You do it well too. I must have missed it when Democrats, upon getting control of both houses of Congress in 2006 -did something ANYTHING to try and head this off.

And apparently YOU missed it when Bush repeatedly urged Congress to address this problem and tighten regulations BEFORE a crisis occurred. And missed it when Bush got a bill sponsored that would have created a regulatory body to specifically address this problem only to have Democrats kill it in committee? Must have also missed it when Franks said there was no impending financial crisis and that government needed to pressure banks to make MORE of these high risk loans? Guess that means you also missed it when McCain sponsored a bill and stood on the floor of the Senate URGING the Democrat controlled Congress to take action before it was too late -only to have Democrats vote down his bill? Instead you show up here with your babble about those "evil" Republicans because .....Democrats said so and claim those are the "full facts"? Pretty pathetic you know. Omitting certain facts in order to manipulate people to believe something false, something they would not believe if they knew those facts - is a form of LYING. Democrats lied big time on this one and you are the chump here Sealybobo, sorry.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs[/ame] See if you can actually follow who from which party is saying what. This one makes your mindless babble about Republicans just pathetic and the uniformed drivel it is. [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMnSp4qEXNM[/ame] [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxMInSfanqg&NR=1[/ame]

You want to know who to really blame -then make sure you know who actually had their hands in this first, the role they all played -and WHY. This started under Clinton when Democrats controlled Congress and thought forcing banks into making high risk loans to people who would otherwise never get a loan was a desirable thing. Oh sure, destroying whatever credit the poor had when they defaulted on these loans was a great way to help them, right? Democrats didn't consider the consequences of the high default rate such a practice would involve -because they stupidly believed they were HELPING THE POOR and since that was so NOBLE, it must be a really wonderful idea! This policy wasn't changed when Republicans controlled Congress because they didn't want to take the political hit Democrats would launch insisting it somehow "proved" Republicans hated the poor and wanted to keep them poor. And once Democrats regained control of Congress, they not only refused to do anything about it, Democrats VIGOROUSLY defended it in response to the growing and increasing calls that a major crisis was rapidly approaching! If you think otherwise, go back and watch those videos of Democrats defending this and insisting there was no growing crisis at all! A high percentage of these people had been defaulting on these loans all along -but the percentage of the banks' assets these bad loans represented had gotten to the point where the rate of defaults could cause the entire collapse of the institution. It is a FACT that it was Democrats who tried to use the Congressional Finance and Banking committees -which have regulatory oversight of the banks -for their SOCIAL ENGINEERING experiment! And a fact that Republicans refused to stop it for fear of taking a political hit from Democrats turning it into a "hate the poor" bullshit. One party of arrogant elitists who think the proper use of government is to force private businesses into bad business practices for their social engineering experiments and another party of pusillanimous wimps unwilling to stand up and do the right thing because it might come with a political cost to them personally. Both parties screwed over the entire country and we should toss the entire lot out.

And let's get real here, ok? These people who are defaulting on their loans are NOT victims of anyone here except possibly their own greed. This one isn't rocket science -a person of normal intelligence would instantly understand what they were being offered here. They were handed a house they paid nothing for -no down payment was made like everyone else has to do, not a single penny of their own was at risk here. If they paid the loan for that house, it would be theirs -if not and they defaulted on it, then they lost NOTHING because not one cent of their own money was tied up in it. Who wouldn't take that? Its a win-win situation for people who would normally never get a loan in the first place. It is NOT my problem or anyone else's problem that some were just too greedy and used the opportunity to choose houses way above their means and ones they already knew they could never pay for anyway. I'm not losing any sleep over the fact that some of them defaulted on their loans and are losing a house they didn't put one cent of their own money into anyway, sorry.


Try to remember this truism. Whatever government touches, it screws up. This is a truism because it is TRUE. It doesn't matter which party is in power, it doesn't matter how "noble" sounding those politicians' goals may be -this doesn't change. In fact, the more "noble" sounding the goals, the bigger the screw ups tend to be. If you think government knows far better how to run banks or any other business and believe a bunch of arrogant, elitist lawyers who could never get a real job can do a better job at making the major business decisions - try to remember the truth here. GOVERNMENT IS RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT HAPPENED HERE! Not a political party but GOVERNMENT itself and regardless of which party was in power. And now Obama wants government to have far more control in making those decisions! Obama intends to turn those TARP loans into shares of stock, making government the largest shareholder in many of these banks. Which comes with the power to call the shots for all sorts of business decisions and means all loans and all financial business decisions of these banks will be made by government -and be a POLITICAL DECISION, not a business one. After seeing how well they screwed up with these high risk loans, it somehow increased your confidence in government being far more qualified to make these business decisions? LOL What a sap you truly are then -because you must believe that Democrats will always be the ones wielding that power and turning those banking decisions into political ones, right? ROFLMAO I'd rather neither side have the ability to run our banks in accordance with their politics. Which is why I'm a conservative and you are a short-sighted moron.

bLABLABLA.

I graduated with a bunch of right wing assholes, so don't blame public schools.

Chances are, you were brainwashed by your father.

Or, they say we are born with either a conservative or liberal gene in our bodies. In other words, you may have been born a stupid asshole.

Now if you are rich, then you are just greedy.

But if you are not rich, then you are dumb as a fucking bag of rocks.

Just look who the unions endorse every election. Why don't you try to convince them that the GOP is the better party for them? You don't think the GOP has tried?

So I didn't read whatever you posted, but I'm sure I can guess what it shows. It shows that Domocrats work with Corporations too. Is that about right? Corporations send lobbyists to buy off Democrats, just like they do Republicans. Is that it in a nutshell?

Well at least the Democrats give a dog a bone every once in awhile.

But no, black people, unions and I are not born Democrats. In fact, Republicans used to have the black vote until the Mississippi Flood. It was Katrina but back in the 1920's. Anyways, the GOP lost the black vote. And I don't know when the GOP ever had labor's vote. And I liked Reagan. So whatever your party did from Bush 1 to now, is why I think you and your party are anti American. Fuck you.

 

[sealybobo]

Democrats MUST work with Corporations and the rich while also working for the poor/middle class/labor/unions.

The GOP has the luxury of being able to say FUCK YOU to the middle class, because they got all the wedge issues.

How many broke ass Americans vote GOP because they are

Racist, Ignorant, pro guns, hate gays, care about abortion.

Many broke ass Americans are social conservatives. I don't care how much I am against abortion. It would never get me to vote against my own self interests.

For example, ENRON. The GOP's deregulations led to the Enron scandal. And you guys don't think that the Enron thing has anything to do with what's going on today? Its all connected. Anyways, think about all the dumb fucking enron employees who voted for Bush because they care about someone else getting an abortion, and they fucking lost their life savings. HA fucking HA to those stupid cock suckers!!!

 

[elvis]

the douchebag speaks again.

 

[sealybobo]

the douchebag speaks again.

When the Bush-Cheney Administration drastically cut federal resources for the investigation of white-collar crime, they invited a new era of Wall Street rule-breaking and the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

We must give federal law enforcers the resources they need to prosecute and punish the mortgage and corporate fraudsters that have so severely undermined our economy and hurt so many hard-working people.

The Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act, a bill I introduced and is being debated on the floor of the Senate this week, will do just that.

Click here to email your Members of Congress, urging them to support the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act and give federal law enforcers the resources they need to take a bite out of white-collar crime.

The past administration removed more than 2,000 FBI agents from white-collar crime investigations. Thousands of fraud allegations have gone unexamined, paving the way for excessive greed and depriving taxpayers of millions of dollars in fines and recoveries.

While the Bush-Cheney Justice Department devoted precious resources to produce secret legal memos that skirted the Constitution, it turned a blind eye to financial fraudsters as they skirted federal law.

We must rebuild our nation's capacity to investigate and prosecute financial fraud.